Suffer to Live
by NicoleMarieDubois
Summary: After surviving an attempted suicide, Erik struggles to piece together what remains of his broken life. An anthem to the trials and redemptions this side of eternity.
1. Prologue: Resurrection

_**For my husband, on our anniversary**_

Prologue: Resurrection

Rain slapped the cobblestones and snaked through the gutters in filthy rivulets. Under the dreary downpour, the black waters of the Seine boiled. Récipon's bronze nymphs, with their regal crowns and tranquil countenances, watched from their perch astride the Pont Alexandre III bridge as the tormented current fled far beneath their feet. The anguished whispers of the storm flooded the empty streets.

Along the river's steep banks, where the fresh rain could not flush away the river's thick, green smell, refuse tipped and floated as it caught in the water weeds. Yellowed newspapers and muddied scraps and rags clung to the banks and covered the water's edge. Among the garbage, an opera mask of black silk glittered with the weak moonlight.

Gradually the rhythm of a horse's somber march drowned out the sounds of the storm as a cab crawled through the darkness. Both the grey mare and black carriage glistened with cold droplets of heavy rain. The driver huddled in his cloak and swung his lantern right and left, throwing long, twisted shadows from the skeleton trees that grew along the Seine. His eyes strained against the gloom, searching for a sign of hope.

A sudden shout from within the cab made the driver pull hard on the reigns. Before the carriage had stopped, its passenger flew out of the cab to the banks of the river. As the driver followed with the lantern, the mysterious passenger sought with his strange, jade eyes the object he had seen sparkling in the water.

Having spied the mask, he carefully descended the bank and stepped into the refuse. But when he tried to lift the mask, he was alarmed to find that something weighed it down. Barking orders to the driver in a foreign tongue and plunging mid-calf into the clinging grime, he raised the bulk beneath the mask.

The water fell away, revealing a human body.

Frantically, the two men heaved the body out of the river and dragged it up to the street. After shouting in his strange language for the driver to retrieve necessities from the cab, the man with the jade eyes knelt on the wet pavement and removed the mask. He pried his fingers between the fetid lips of what was undeniably an old corpse and opened the mouth, exposing fresh air to the body's sodden lungs. As he turned the corpse on its side and shook it as if to awaken the dead man from his eternal slumber, he whispered with despair.

Miraculously, the corpse came alive, its mouth a gaping hole gasping for the damp night air. The resurrected man suddenly gagged and vomited the muddy river onto the street, along with a sour stench. With a groan, he rolled onto his back and passed into an exhausted faint. The rescuer closed his jade eyes and sent silent thanks to Heaven for having found the man alive. He quickly replaced the mask before the driver returned with a heavy blanket from the cab. They wrapped the blanket around the fainted man and carried him through the downpour to the carriage.

* * *

The man with the jade eyes, who was known only as The Persian, sat in his apartment beside the bed of the rescued man. With a towering, slim frame, defined muscles, and tan skin, the Persian's appearance masked his sixty years. Very little was known about him, and even less was known about his companion whom he had dragged from the river. In fact, only the Persian knew the man's real name. Others called him the Opera Ghost—the Phantom of the Opera.

With a clean, dry towel, the Persian wiped the mud from the man's arms and around the edge of his masked face. A lively fire in the hearth warmed the room while the patter of rain on the window glass was like so many pearls falling from a broken necklace. Slowly his ward's hollow eyes flitted open, focusing immediately on those of his rescuer.

"Daroga…" the man muttered, using the Persian's other nickname.

The Persian smiled. "We found you only moments ago, Erik. You nearly drowned."

"Why… Why did you come for me?"

"I never expected you to send me your possessions as we had discussed months ago. But when the package arrived, I guessed that you planned some dreadful end for yourself. My servant and I set out immediately and searched the entire Paris Opera, and then a quarter of Paris itself to find you."

Erik lifted himself from the Persian's saffron pillows and propped his elbows beside him for support. "You published the message?"

"I did as promised. Tomorrow, the newspaper will announce your death."

Erik scoffed. "Interfering in my plans was not a part of your _promise_." He winced from a sudden headache and sank back onto the bed.

The Persian dropped the towel onto the bedside table with a sigh. Clearly Erik was regaining his strength, if his sarcasm were any indication. He rose from his post by the bed and walked to the hearth, where the air was warmer than around the Death that lay in his bed. "I confess I care for you too deeply, my friend. I couldn't let you take your own life... It's not the first time that I've rescued you. I wouldn't have had to leave my homeland and come to this dismal country if not for that I had already saved your life once before. For that, I could be executed if I ever return to Persia. And to let all that be for nothing, to allow you to expire at your own hands?"

Erik turned to lie on his side, his back to the Persian. "But how could you have known of my plans?"

"I know you too well."

For a long moment, he was silent, and the Persian began to think that he had fallen asleep. A gust of wind outside rattled the window frame. Then Erik spoke, softly and deliberately, as if the subject of conversation had taken from him what little strength he had regained. "From the Pont Alexandre III, I climbed a post until I touched the golden wings of a statue of Pegasus, then threw myself from that lofty perch into the river. And somehow, in the abandonment of hope is perverse liberation … As my feet left the cold stone, Daroga, I felt the heavy chains around my heart finally release me. The curse that had plagued me—that is, _my life_—was ending at last. It was my only prospect for eliminating my pain, the one moment I felt truly at peace…" Erik turned on the bed. His teary, golden eyes bore into the Persian's like a child looking into the face of the man who stole his only sou. "Could you _truly_ know me well enough to understand what you've just taken from me?"

The Persian turned from that burning stare to watch the dancing flames of the fire. "Shall I confess my own sad stories, the secrets of my youth, to prove to you I understand? I know all too well, Erik. I even know that at first you could never part with those trinkets you sent me, but then in the end you couldn't bear even the sight of them, their memories too dear! Sending them to me to be rid of them gave you a morbid idea: a way to end your misery!"

Erik trembled, overwhelmed with remorse. "It is as you have said. One particular recollection incessantly torments me… My thoughts always return, uncontrollably, to the moment Christine gave me her shoe ribbon… which I sent to you with her other things. It was while she was staying with me… I think I had played the harp while we sang, and we had sung all afternoon. But even though the harp strings blistered my fingers, I kept on because… Whenever her singing stopped for the night, it was as if I had awakened from a dear dream and had returned to my living nightmare! So I kept playing and we continued singing until I saw that she became fatigued. I came towards her and she cried out… I thought, 'Of course, the idea of being so close to me must terrify her.' But then she pointed to my fingers and explained that one of them was blistered terribly and had begun to bleed. I didn't feel any pain, Daroga, I only knew that my sweet girl was concerned for me and it was like an unimaginable dream. And she sought to bandage my finger with her precious ribbon!… _My_ fingers, the fingers of a corpse!…" He lifted his right hand and extended his index finger to demonstrate, as if the feminine bandages were still wrapped around his limb. "She trembled a little as she wound the pearly satin and tied it in a petite knot, but she was concerned for me!"

The Persian said nothing as he listened to Erik's tale, but closed his jade eyes as the fire's warmth seeped into his bones.

"And it was all a _lie_!" he spat, shaking his head. "It was not the concern one shows a lover, but only the manner in which a gentle girl worries over a damaged forest creature! How naïve I was!…But it isn't her fault, Daroga. I can't blame her for being a gentle girl worried over a wretched forest creature… It's my heart, Daroga… Rather than accept the truth, it only believed what it wanted…. That ribbon taunted me, playing my desires, tying me to the shredded threads of hope by the maddening '_maybe_.'" He sighed as he pronounced that plaguing word, and wrung the hem of the Persian's crisp linen sheets. "I exhausted myself anticipating her return, trying desperately to believe that she had left her shoe ribbon with me as a token of her undying love and that she would come for me. Don't you understand, Daroga? My happiness exists only in the fantasies of my imagination! Am I to continue in this despair until my heartless Maker grants my demise? Surely someone such as I has the right to make an end of it. It was _selfish_ of you to seize me from my escape and return me to my suffering!"

The Persian turned from the fireplace to frown at his companion. "My friend, by whatever name you call heaven, I saved you because I'm concerned for your salvation!" Erik rolled his golden eyes. "Surely you know that suicide will close to you the gates of Paradise forever!"

"It hardly matters now! Those gates are _locked_ against me, 'Monsieur.' I've seen no evidence of _Heaven's_ existence—Rather, I know what fate awaits me! For _me_ there is only more torment in the life to come, but then at least I will be among those as wretched as myself. I'll no longer be an outcast!"

"_Astaghfirallah_!" The Persian raised his eyes and arms to heaven.

Erik's hollow eyes widened. "Why are you shouting at me? I'm too weak for this reproach!"

"Because you refuse to listen to reason! I've risked my life for you! It pains me to see you in such sorrow. Please, calm yourself and think rationally! My friend, you've created such marvelous inventions and compositions—" he ignored Erik's scoffing remarks "—and you're still alive, so there is more to be done! Relief will come in time, dear friend. Please, just be patient."

A knock sounded gently at the bedroom door, and the Persian opened it to his servant carrying a tray that brought with it the frangrant scent of springtime. "Here is Darius with your Mazenderan tea. Rest awhile, and we will talk more when your faculties return."

Erik took the cup and saucer from the timid servant. "I'll thank you not to burden me with your pious sermons. I'm not interested in your religion's opinion of my existence."

The Persian pursed his lips and left the room.

* * *

Before dawn the following morning, Darius entered the Persian's bedchamber with a basin of water for their ablutions for the early morning prayer. He set the basin on the bedside table and wakened his master. As the Persian rose and rubbed his tired eyes, Darius informed him that their guest was missing. Hearing his servant's startling news, the Persian ran to the guest room. The room where Erik had slept was in immaculate order: the linens were folded on the bed and the unsightly wet clothes and blanket from the previous night were gone.

But Erik was also missing.

Where did he go, and in what condition? The Persian had no doubt that his friend was suffering extreme despair, for which any man would understandably wish for solitude. But the Persian feared that Erik would again try to take his life, or—more horrendous and unthinkable—he would kill himself in such a vengeful glory as to take with him the lives of innocents! He had already threatened such an unconscionable deed once before. The Persian set out immediately with Darius to hunt for his friend.

The quiet daybreak echoed their every footstep as they searched the Rue Rivoli and the surrounding streets. The rain had transformed into a thick fog, through which the ruins of the Tuileries loomed like shadowy carcasses in a smoky battlefield. Shivering in the frigid air, the Persian and his servant realized almost at once that, with their vision limited by the weather, it would be impossible to find anyone—especially someone who didn't wish to be found. They retired to the apartment, but the Persian's mind would not rest.

He had saved the life of his friend once before, in his own country. Then he had followed Erik to Paris and witnessed a terrible unfolding of events as the monster had tried to win the affection of the opera signer Christine Daaé—through the murder of men and the near destruction of the Paris Opera!

Since birth, Erik wore a mask to hide his terrifying ugliness. Those whom his face had frightened had reacted with incredible cruelty. His appearance prevented him from living as other men, and the isolation had driven him to near insanity. Now it seemed that the last strands of Erik's self-control had unraveled. Unless the Hand of Mercy intervened, the Persian was certain that Paris would again face terrifying destruction if he didn't find his friend in time.


	2. Murder

_**a/n: I'm hoping for feedback on my writing, so please leave a review and let me know what you like/ hate about the story. If you're shy, feel free to send me a private message.**_

Chapter 2: Murder

As the night slowly lifted her heavy veil of mist to reveal the face of dawn, several officers of the Sûreté gathered on a street named Place Denfert-Rochereau, at a tunnel to the catacombs. A body had been discovered only hours ago, discarded at the crypt's entrance, with a cord tied in some strange manner around its neck. In the grey light of the morning, Michel Mifroid, Police Commissioner of the Sûreté, descended from a hansom cab at the crime scene. A man of towering stature and immaculate dress, his appearance impressed the officers. He did not go immediately to hear the report of the captain-in-charge, as would have been his usual protocol. Instead, to the shock of the policemen swarming about like ants, he reached back into the cab and gave his hand to a mysterious lady as she disembarked. Then, as if the two had arrived for an afternoon tea, they casually set to work analyzing the distorted figure of the corpse.

Mifroid donned a pince-nez and fingered the damp, fraying rags of the dead man's clothes. "Have you identified the victim?"

The officer whom he addressed stared at the woman accompanying his commissioner. "No, Sir. It seems that he was only a tramp seeking shelter in the catacombs."

"A grim choice of sanctuary." Mifroid turned to the young woman. "What do you make of this rope, my dear?"

She knelt with the commissioner beside the cadaver and gently removed her suede gloves. "I've never seen a knot like this." Experimentally, she touched the rope with her bare hands and tugged on the knot. The fibers of the chord were strong and sinewy. "It feels like jute fiber, Papa."

The captain-in-charge, who until this point had been consulting with another officer at the entrance of the tomb, finally looked up from his work and noticed the lady handling the dead body. "Excuse me, is this mademoiselle your daughter? And you've brought her to a scene of a murder? A woman's constitution isn't suited to police work, Monsieur Commissioner."

"Captain Lefevre, this is my daughter Alice," Mifroid announced as he stood from his examination, rising to his full, intimidating height. "I have been tutoring her at home at her own request since her return from a _scientific_ American seminary for women. This is her first excursion to the field." He looked down at his progeny diligently at work. "My dear, do you feel at all nervous?"

"No, Papa." She never once looked up from her examination of the threads circled tightly around the neck of the corpse. In her studies, she had handled human bones, even examining their construction in slides under a microscope. She had learned various diseases and had studied illustrations of their grotesque consequences. But all this description is not meant to conjure an image of an unfeeling intellectual. In fact, the young woman who knelt beside the dead body, surrounded by members of the Sûreté, possessed an extraordinarily compassionate disposition. How she preserved it in the face of her ghastly studies, this author really cannot narrate. Perhaps, through the study of death and human suffering, it is truly possible for one to grasp the painful finality of our existence and empathize with the other transient souls of this world. However she managed it, Alice Mifroid mourned the sad fate of the deceased as she examined his body.

She casually brushed a soft tendril of hair away from her eyes as she continued her investigation, digging her fingers between the rope and the cold flesh of the corpse and feeling for the jagged, yielding texture of bruising and broken bones. Engrossed in her work, she was unaware of the effect of her presence on the policemen. Her romanesque profile and youthful color were certainly distracting to the younger cadets, while the senior officers seemed more put out by her intrusion into masculine domain. The captain who had brazenly chastised Mifroid returned to his work examining some muddy prints, mumbling something about the commissioner of the Sûreté probably having wished for a son. Another officer soon joined the rebuke, though.

"Monsieur Commissioner, we are unused to working with curious women dodging around. Please take your daughter home and have her continue her lessons from books the way that other ladies study. Really, Monsieur, this is most unusual."

The other officers stopped their forensics and stared at the man who had spoken so disrespectfully to their commissioner. Mifroid approached him with tight lips until the two men stood toe-to-toe, each man measuring the other.

The commissioner's strong frame towered over the other officer's, and his beady black eyes, hawk-like nose, and strong jawline emulated the visage of a bird of prey. The rough appearance of pockmarks and a few hardened wrinkles inspired fear and obedience in the men under his strict command. The pince-nez was a constant reminder of his superior intellect. The details mattered: his silver hair neatly combed with not a strand out of place, the gold buttons of his coat polished until they shone. In a word, the commissioner represented _order_.

"Monsieur, had your team determined that the content of this rope was jute fiber?"

The dumbstruck officer twitched. "No Monsieur Commissioner. We were trying to trace the style of the unusual knot. We haven't analyzed the rope's construction."

At last the young lady looked up from her place on the ground. "Perhaps the fabric of the rope reveals something about the knot. If the rope is made from jute, then maybe it and this knot's style come from the same place, from India."

The policeman stared. Mifroid clapped his hands as his daughter stood and replaced her suede gloves. Like vultures, the rest of the investigating team descended on the abandoned body and cut away the rope. They left its knot in tact, so that they could examine it more closely (and determine if it was indeed made of jute fiber). Alice joined her father, who at once asked her privately about her analysis.

"The knot was tied so that the noose would lock quickly around the victim's neck. The victim could have died from suffocation, because his windpipe and jugular are completely collapsed around the point of contact with the rope. But his neck is also broken, and I think the knot permitted the murderer to finish his victim with just a skillful flick of his wrist." She paused in her review, allowing her father to digest the gruesome description. "This method of murder is unusual. To capture someone by lasso before being detected by the victim, to hold the rope in the right way so that the knot would slip tight, and then to snap the wrist so that the rope would pull the backbone apart… Certainly the murderer has had practice."

"Indeed, he has," confided her father quietly, his eyes staring up into the pale morning light as his mind looked into the past. "What you've described corresponds with what we found on Joseph Buquet's body at the Paris Opera, although the weapon was missing. That's why I was asked early this morning to supervise this investigation."

"The Opera Garnier?" Alice looked around at the scene in front of her. "But we're on the other side of Paris. Is our man moving about the city?"

Mifroid eyed the catacombs wearily. "Who can say how far those ghastly tunnels lead?"

Listening to the commissioner explain the intricate network of tunnels beneath the city, Alice drew near the entrance to the crypt. There, the stale morning air fell silent. From somewhere deep in the impenetrable darkness, a gentle sound very much like a chanted hymn reached her ears. It echoed faintly from those dreadful walls beneath the street, as if the dead were reading the requiem mass for their newest member.

"Should we try to follow him through the tunnels to the Opera?" She shivered in the crisp morning air and turned to her father, who had suddenly paled like the dead man they had just examined. Surely he heard the singing voice as well!

"It's too risky. I'll have some men guard the entrance tonight, but even the police shouldn't chance going inside. There are other vagabonds down there who might be dangerous. And we could very easily get lost."

There are, in this wide world, some things that frighten even commissioners of the Sûreté. His eyes were wide behind their pince-nez. As the reverent chanting grew louder and clearer, the police stared like madmen at the entrance to the catacombs.

Like a passing spirit, the singing suddenly faded into the wind, and the silence of the grave at last returned. The men shook themselves as if coming out of a dream. Not wishing to linger, they rushed to finish their forensics and to transport the body to the morgue. In the commotion, Commissioner Mifroid furtively pocketed the unusual rope of jute fiber in order to research the mysterious knot.

* * *

Riding home in the spreading daylight, Alice and her father talked about the murder and how they could find its perpetrator. The suggestion that the Paris Opera might still contain clues seemed a prospect worth pursuing. Neither of them mentioned the catacombs or the disembodied hymn they had heard from its depths. Instead, Alice inquired about the opera house's legend.

"How could anyone believe that there was a phantom in the Paris Opera?" She rolled her eyes. "It's almost the twentieth century. We're well past the age of myths and superstitions."

"Show business attracts superstitious types, I suppose."

She shook her head. "Even the newspapers presumed that the place was haunted, and that a _ghost_ committed those strange crimes earlier this year, before I returned from the seminary. The entire Paris Opera staff is convinced. And there's also the deaths of Monsieur Buquet and the Comte deChagny, in the cellars beneath the Opera."

"My dear, I investigated the Comte's death, and as you know there was a feud between the two brothers. His drowning must be related to that." He narrowed his eyes. "Are you telling me that at your age you still believe in ghosts?"

"Never, Papa! I think that some person must have exploited the company's superstitions."

Mifroid frowned and looked out his window. "That's also what the Persian reported to Monsieur Faure during the investigation of the Comte's demise. Of course, as I have said, the Comte was murdered by his brother, and the other.. er.. 'incidents' attributed to the ghost were really just circumstantial accidents."

But Alice was relentless, and pulled a tattered newspaper clipping from her change purse. "This is a notice published in _L'Epoque_ this morning. I think it's a message from the murderer. The name is exactly the same as that mentioned by the Persian during the investigation."

Mifroid stared at the paper. A single line with three words:

_Erik is dead._

He could not believe it. "But certainly there could be other Eriks in the city…" he whispered to himself. "How could it be that the very name voiced by the Comte deChagny's brother is now printed in the paper?" For it was not only the Persian who had spoken of Erik. Indeed, Christine Daaé's lover, the Viscount deChagny, had raved like a madman, petitioning the commissioner's assistance against a man named Erik. Mifroid had never reported their conversation. To Alice, therefore, he only smiled condescendingly. "That raving Persian probably sent the message in order to give his story merit."

"But why would he create such a story, Papa? Let me talk to the Persian myself. If there is anything credible in his story, I'll investigate."

Mifroid laughed and passed the paper back to Alice. "My dear, remember that you are a young lady and not an officer of the Sûreté! I already told you that I investigated the incident personally and everything is already reported. Besides, the Persian is a lunatic. When you talk to him, you'll understand what I mean. He goes on about a torture chamber under the opera house, or something of that nature, and other unbelievable curiosities, like an underground lake!"

"All the same, Papa, may I visit him?"

Mifroid sighed. "Do not go alone."


	3. A Reprehensible Performance

Chapter 3: A Reprehensible Performance

Months after the final disappearance of the famous soprano Christine Daaé, the Paris Opera announced the début of a new score. Entitled _Don Juan Triumphant_, it promised all the scandal and indecency of any popular opera, and even required that a pipe organ be installed temporarily behind the stage. But the name of the composer was never revealed. An even greater riddle was how the opera's manuscript had fallen into the hands of the opera managers. Neither of them disclosed how they had learned of the mysterious work, but rumor had it that the piece had inexplicably materialized a few weeks after the murder of the Comte deChagny. Although little was known about _Don Juan_, Paris high society was eager for a fresh opera. The début sold out to the most famous Parisian nobles and aristocrats. For an opera that had not yet received any reviews, and whose composer was still unknown, the success of its first sale is quite extraordinary.

At last the long-awaited night settled over Paris, and the Opera seats began to fill for _Don Juan Triumphant_. Attendants gossiped in the gilded Grand Foyer, opining on the origins of the new score. Their talk inevitably branched into other topics, including the unusual daughter of one commissioner of the Sûreté, whose family lived close to the Opera Garnier. Unfortunately, Alice Mifroid was very often the subject of Parisian gossip due to the combination of her beautiful looks and deranged pursuits, not to mention her anglophilic prénome. Somehow, though a few accomplished suitors had offered their hand (and their impressive inheritances) since she had returned from abroad, the lovely Mademoiselle Mifriod remained unwed. Her private interests, when finally discovered—and she made a point of having them known—intimidated most men. People who did not know her very well also commented disapprovingly that her demeanor was too conservative and severe.

She had been introduced to a dashing young barrister upon her return to France, and mutual attraction had blossomed. Yet when she began to study alongside her father, her beau had insisted that while an educated wife would be beneficial to the family, such wisdom should not serve the gruesome investigation of crimes. They had struggled for a few weeks to come to an understanding. Then his visits and letters ceased quite suddenly. Eventually it was discovered that he had established a practice in Marseilles. Taking the experience all too seriously, Alice concluded that she would never find her life-long companion, and stopped looking.

Nevertheless, she took care to keep up appearances for the sake of her father's reputation. She was much softer in public than when she visited a crime scene. At the Opera the night of _Don Juan_'s début, her gown of sapphire silk cascaded from her shoulders like ethereal waters, and slender tendrils of her russet hair framed her evergreen eyes. Her lilting voice echoed pleasantly among the lobby's twisted shadows as she conversed with her parents' companions by the flickering gas lamps. Yet her purpose at the opera that night was not for mere amusement. She and the commissioner had come to investigate an open homicide.

When the theater lights dimmed, the Mifroids took their seats in a box on the second tier shared by officers of the Sûreté. Alice lifted her opera glass and searched for the famous Box Five—rumored to be haunted by the Opera Ghost. The box was empty. The theater was quite dark, and it grew still darker until only the musicians' candles twinkled weakly from the depths of the orchestra pit. In the total darkness, those small specks of light had the brilliance of small suns, blinding the audience to all but their radiance. Alice couldn't even see her parents' figures beside her, let alone the box facing them across the theater.

As the curtains parted,_ Don Juan Triumphant_ began with a violent pounding of drums. The jolting tones of a pipe organ commenced the opening sequence as the stage lit up to reveal a perfectly dangerous Don Juan, boasting of his many female conquests:

"From the princess who resists  
to a fishergirl in a humble ship,  
there's no female who does not yield,  
no enterprise I will not consider,  
whether it smacks of gold or valor.

"Let the quarrelsome ones,  
and the gamblers, come:  
whoever is proud, let him see  
if he can take advantage of me,  
in gaming, in loving, or fighting!"

From the first burning note, Alice was entranced. To say that _Don Juan_ evoked passion or even desire would not accurately recount the tempest that it stirred in her soul. In the dark theatre, a hot blush spread over her features _as if the music itself seduced her_. The bracing chords and the rush of the violins caused her to shiver as if a fierce lover of her own whispered gently in her ear. Meanwhile, Don Juan continued his tales of indulgence in raw, candid words, drawing inferences both intriguing and exciting:

"Such an alluring picture  
inflames my senses, whole,  
and fills my burning soul  
with senseless ardor.

"It began as a wager,  
followed by mad desire,  
engendering the fire,  
then doth the flesh alight!"

The music crescendoed, and with it rose the beating of Alice's heart. Her breath came rapidly with the notes of the opera until at last the music climaxed, the pipe organ pulsing with a crash of cymbals and a harmony of sighing violins. As the curtain closed on the insatiable lover, Alice rested back in her chair. Her heartbeat gradually slowed its wild rhythm as she fanned her flushed skin and shyly concealed her excitement. Her gaze swept across the theater to gauge the audience's reaction to the aria, and a motion from first tier box five caught her eye. She blinked, and the box appeared as it had been before the overture: empty.

Her pulse still roaring in her ears, louder than even the applause filling the theater, Alice wondered if the powerful music hadn't affected her sight as well. She had thought for certain that she had seen a face, white and glowing like the moon, floating in the darkness of box five.

No sooner had the consideration come to mind, when the stage curtains parted again. Thus began the first act of _Don Juan Triumphant_.

* * *

Intermission promised Alice some time to herself, as her father reviewed with the Opera managers the death of Joseph Buquet. Eager to escape and to calm her rushing pulse, she climbed the grand staircase and took the corridor to first tier box five, hoping to discover the source of that mysterious shape she had seen in the darkness.

She had not taken an interest in her father's work until after her return from the seminary, where her earnest studies had been the fruits of her fascination with the sources of life. There had been no better location to study such material than at the women's seminary, where faith in the Maker and the study of His creation were together promoted. At the commissioner's encouragement, Alice began learning the skills of law enforcement when she returned to France. She was particularly interested in the adventure of field work, where her knowledge of science could apply itself most aptly. Her lessons with her father and readings from his manuals had introduced her to the strategies for such interesting activities as autopsies, tracing a suspect, clandestine infiltration, and forensics. But her secret tiptoe to box five was no mere practice. She had the distinct objective in mind of finding the Opera Ghost.

As she dodged past other finely-dressed patrons, she reviewed her earlier conversation with the Persian. Before attending the opera that night, Alice had paid a visit to that enigmatic Persian who, according to Monsieur Faure, lived in a small apartment on the Rue de Rivoli. Accompanied by her mother's pert housekeeper Heloise (at the commissioner's insistence), she had rung the bell and was greeted by an extraordinary servant. He was thin and tanned, and wore a strange red cap and a long robe striped like a peppermint. The quiet man had an unsettling stare that frightened poor Heloise, but Alice found his exotic appearance intriguing. She gave him her card, then followed him to the drawing room to await her host.

The Persian's apartment was nothing like the rooms of French society. On the hearth beside the fire, thin smoke rose languidly from a heavy brass censor, carrying with it the intoxicating fragrance of myrrh. Tiny amber beads of glass, strung together, fringed the window curtains like a virgin's lowered lashes. In one corner, a decorative bookcase held strange volumes whose spines displayed magnificent calligraphy. Beside an ordinary wingback chair stood a small wooden table with eight sides, the legs embossed in a stylized garden of blooms and fruit. Taking in the scene, the two ladies sat on a settee and felt as if they had been transported to an Arabian palace.

A tall man of olive complexion, dressed like a French gentleman but wearing another unusual hat, emerged from an adjoining room. His robust frame exuded authority, but the deep crow's feet at the corners of his wizened, jade eyes betrayed his aging years. "Mademoiselle, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. As you know, I recently gave my statement to Monsieur Faure, who no doubt has relayed it to your father. I am the Persian."

He sat in the wingback chair, prepared to entertain this young lady. But the memory of his previous discussion with Monsieur Faure made him nervous. He understood that the examining magistrate did not believe that a man named Erik had lived in the cellars of the Paris Opera, so why was the daughter of a commissioner of the Sûreté now in his parlor?

"My servant will bring us some refreshments shortly. Pray, how is your father, and what business brings you to my humble home?"

"Monsieur, my father told me of your statements to Monsieur Faure concerning a man living in the Paris Opera and committing crimes under the pretenses of an Opera Ghost. The police don't believe your story, but I'm interested. Is this man still living in the Opera, or has he left?"

Frowning, the Persian stroked his beard. The possibility that someone would believe his tale made him at once speechless and uncertain.

"And the message in _L'Epoque_. _Is_ Erik dead?"

The Persian stared. This small, straightforward lady had read the Phantom's obituary and understood its meaning. For several moments he said nothing, as his startled mind turned over how he could possibly answer her. Then he shook his head. "Mademoiselle, whatever position your father holds, you are not yourself an inspector and I'm afraid I cannot oblige you. Forgive my rudeness, but I only betrayed Erik's secrets to the police to save two lives. But your interest in his story is a very dangerous curiosity."

"If I can bring proof to my father, then the police will reopen the case," she replied patiently.

The Persian looked down at his hands and rubbed his fingers nervously. "Your proposition tempts me, but many mysteries are best left unsolved. While I admire an inquisitive mind, your innocent curiosity could unveil terrifying secrets for which you—as a lady—would be unprepared. The story of the Opera Ghost, as you know it already, is of murder and deception. Would you disinter further horrors in your quest to capture the elusive ghost?"

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but I'm not a superstitious ignoramus. Surely you're familiar with the American seminary from which I received my education in science. Its missionary activities extend even into your Persia! And I've accompanied my father in his fieldwork, so my constitution is stronger than most women. As for what I hope to discover in my investigation…." she considered explaining to him about the recent murder, but then merely added, "I only know my heart yearns to know the truth. And to put the mystery to rest."

The Persian pressed his steepled fingers to his lips. Indeed, he _was_ familiar with her alma mater. Missionaries from her seminary had founded a school in Oroomiah in Persia for the Nestorians, whose education was now renowned to be superb. He had no doubt that she was a brilliant young lady, but no matter what merits she invoked, she was not a police inspector. The Persian was cordial, but he refused to offer any information and denied all of her requests.

* * *

As Alice wandered the back halls of the Opera towards Box Five, she remembered that the Persian had seemed anxious about some matter, as if he had lost something important or feared some terrible event but wasn't certain. Her visit appeared to have exacerbated his anxiety. Noticing his distracted nervousness, Alice had at last taken her leave and thanked the Persian for his hospitality.


	4. Beneath the Trap Door

Chapter 4: Beneath the Trap Door

During her musings about the Persian, Alice had taken a wrong turn. The corridor opened into an immense chamber, and she found herself among colorful stage sets and heavy props. Light poured in from the hallway, and a splendid sight stretched endlessly before her: Egyptian statues, towering ten feet tall, guarded the entrance through which she had passed; and throughout the cellar were gathers of life-like foliage. Each set demonstrated perfect beauty.

They reminded her of the murder which she was investigating—of a man found hanged _next to a set piece_ _from the opera_ Le Roi de Lahore. She began to look for such a setting.

A stairwell to the far right led deeper into the Opera's cellars.

Below she found more sets, more scenery. The light from the room above filtered down the stairwell, losing some of its brilliance. She admired the scenes from the rarer operas as she searched for any that could have decorated _Le Roi_.

Another stairwell.

With each isolated level she descended, the sets became more obscure, the light thinned, and the darkness grew more prevailing. The murmurs of conversation in the foyer above turned to a low hum, then to nothing as she stepped off another stairwell. The only sound now was the roaring in her own ears. She could barely see in the darkness.

Ahead, an impressive set piece loomed from the shadows. Alice could make out the silhouette of heavy vases spraying dusty bouquets of peacock feathers; bright, golden censors for incense; swooping silk canopies; and lavish "marble" pillars encrusted with frescoes of trellised geometrical designs.

The palace of Lahore.

In the darkness, she began to look for evidence of a 'ghost' behind the set. She knew that the Sûreté had already searched the area after the murder, but she still hoped to find something that they had overlooked, even without the use of a lantern! Yet behind the set were only a large flat and a pile of lumber. She found no footprints. Removing a few pieces of the lumber, she discovered nothing; the pile had not been placed there to hide an escape. Frustrated, she sat on one of the dislodged pieces of wood. If this were the wrong set piece, then she had no time to continue her search—the second act of _Don Juan_ would begin soon, and her parents would notice her absence. Frowning, she bent to wipe the dust from her shoes—and became suddenly still, staring at the floor beside her foot.

A strange nail head poked up out of the floor, casting a long, eerie shadow across the uneven surface.

Alice removed her opera gloves and fingered the unusual hardware. Though quite small, the nail's rough, corroded exterior hid a strong core beneath it; it was not one of the cheap nails used in constructing sets. She tried to pull it out of the ground to look at it more closely, but it would not budge, even when she tried wiggling it to force its hold to yield. Frustrated, she pushed the nail—and gasped as it slid easily into the ground, nearly disturbing her balance.

Ancient gears hidden in the floor instantly groaned into motion.

In a moment, a piece of the cellar wall slid to the left on its own, revealing a dark, yawning crawl space. Her heart in her throat, Alice peered inside, and found another nail not far away on the floor in the crawl space. When she pushed on that one, a stone slab fell away from the floor, swinging back on a crafty hinge and inviting her down into a black abyss.

She was certain she had found the escape route used by Buquet's murderer.

There were no stairs to assist her descent. She would have to return another time with rope and a lantern in order to explore this secret passageway. And if the murderer had escaped this way, he might also return, rising from the darkness beneath the Opera like some black worm.

She would be defenseless.

Prying the nail head up again with her bare fingers, Alice watched the stone rise into place. The piece of wall likewise closed when she raised the nail behind the set piece from _Lahore_. Wasting no more time, she then gathered her opera gloves and hurried up the flights of stairs to join her family while dusting the grime from her shimmering gown and planning some excuse about having had to attend to "private, feminine toiletries."

* * *

Days passed before Alice could slip away to the Paris Opera to complete her exploration. She waited until she knew the Opera would be virtually deserted. One night, she slipped out of her family's apartment on the Rue Scribe and hurried down the street. Her pulse beat rapidly with anticipation—she, a young woman, would herself assist the Sûreté in capturing a murderer. Perhaps she would even solve the mystery of the Opera Ghost.

She tested the doors and soon found that an entrance on the Northeast side, used for the stagehands, had the easiest lock to pick. She set to work on it, but the darkness of the moonless night and her beginner's skills delayed her progress. At any moment, a patrolling policeman might discover her. She interrupted her struggle several times to hide from passers-by. After almost an hour, she gained entrance to the deserted opera house. Her path to the trapdoor was easier this time, with the entire company gone until morning. Her footsteps echoing in the vacant, tomb-like interior, she hurried past those colossal opera sets, carrying with her a length of heavy rope and a lantern she had taken unnoticed from the Commissioner's supply at home. Quickly she made her way to the set piece from _Le Roi de Lahore_ and depressed the tiny nail head, then pressed the second one inside the crawl space. As the trapdoor creaked open, she tied one end of the rope to the lantern. Then she slowly lowered the lantern beneath the cellar's floor, reeling out about four meters of the rope before she felt it slacken as the lantern landed gently on solid ground. She then looked for a place to tie the other end of the rope, and lashed it awkwardly to a piece of lumber on the bottom of the woodpile behind the "palace." Bravely, she climbed down the rope into the dark depths of the pit.

Her careful descent took several minutes before she felt her feet safely touch the even ground. She raised the lantern's shade and looked around the room in which she had landed. An iron tree, with a single, grotesquely twisted branch, stretched out into the center of the room and was reflected by mirrors covering the walls, giving the illusion of a dark forest. Her lantern reflected a thousand-fold, like so many lanterns lighting a path in the night for her to follow.

She was in a hall of mirrors. Alice was unafraid and utterly intrigued.

The genius behind its architecture was apparent—she admired the craftsmanship of the precise angles of the mirrors and in the forethought of the drums attached at their base for rotating them. She raised her light upwards to admire the ceiling, and suddenly gasped in alarm. _The trap door had closed by itself, and her rope was missing_. She was completely cornered.

"But then," she thought silently as she tried to calm herself, "Certainly the murderer himself used this passage. There must be a means of opening another trap door for escape."

The mirrors were flawless flat surfaces and offered no nail heads. But after a quarter of an hour, she found what looked to be a pin in the stone floor under the twisted iron branch. Depressing it as she had pushed the nail head opened a hidden trap door in the floor. Confident she had found her passage, Alice followed the exposed stone steps down into another dark room, waving the lantern in front of her.

Innumerable barrels lined the walls of the small, dank room. The distant sound of dripping water echoed from the walls. One of the barrels had been opened, but its contents of grainy gun powder were damp and useless. Alice reasoned that this room must have been used by the communards, who had transformed the Opera into a prison in the last war and had stocked it with weapons. The only barrel to have been used seemed to be the one spilling open onto the floor. To be sure, she inspected the others, lightly rapping on each barrel with her knuckles to test if it its contents had been partially consumed. The third barrel on the right in the back corner rang strangely empty. It was the only empty barrel in the cellar. Had it held gun powder as well?

She pulled on the stopper to open it, and, as if that stopper were a door knob, the entire front of the barrel swung out like a door. The back of the barrel was a tunnel to another room.

In order to crawl through, she had to lie on the floor and stretch herself as thin as she could, with her arms straight ahead of her as if she were diving. _The one who created this passageway must have had the mobility of a cat_, she mused. Pushing the lantern in front of her, she passed through the barrel and the wall behind it. The passageway opened at a small landing.

At the top of a long and winding iron staircase to her right was an ordinary door.

Having just come from a hall of mirrors and a trap-door-in-a-barrel, Alice was struck by the door's commonplace façade. It towered over her like a portal promising to return her from the fantastic to the familiar. She rose slowly to her feet and took the stairs, approaching the door with the reverence with which one approaches a king. She turned the knob and found it locked.

At first she presumed that one would need a key, but she again found a nail head on the wall beside the door knob. She pushed it, but it would not go further into the wall.

Uncertain, she began to wonder if the mechanics had rusted and stiffened with age. But when she studied the shape of the nail head more closely, and found it bristled with spokes, she decided that it was not for pushing at all, but for turning! Turning it clockwise produced no effect—it was already turned as far as it would go—but turning it _counterclockwise _generated a click, and then the knob turned easily, as if she were entering her own room.

She walked cautiously through the door and into an unremarkable room with a Louise-Philippe chest of drawers, a chaise lounge, and a wide, mahogany bed. The furniture, though no doubt mundane in normal light, cast eerie shadows from the flickering light of her lamp. Fragile cobwebs, crusted with dust, draped the corners of the silent room. Alice was convinced that she had discovered the quarters of the murderer. The location was ideal for those who wish to hide. Yet the room's condition indicated a lack of use—she hoped for her own sake that the criminal had abandoned his apartment, but that some clues may have been left behind for her to find.

Her eyes fell on a door on the far wall. To her surprise and great relief, it opened without any tricks. Yet it led only to a lavish bath. There wasn't even a mirror. Hanging on a hook on the back of the door was a man's dressing gown in an art nouveau print the color of brown mustard, with lapels and a sash of burgundy satin. It had an earthy smell to it, like the forest after a fresh rain. Alice found it an apt reminder that criminals engage in the same everyday behaviors as the rest of humanity.

She returned to the dismal bedroom in order to find another method of escape. Searching the floor in the dim lamplight for nail heads to open another trap door, she was startled to see a faint path of dirty footprints leading from the door of the room of mirrors to a space on the right wall. The prints vanished against the wall as if someone had walked right across the floor and through the wall. Well, ghosts might walk through walls, but men certainly cannot! And Alice was certain that it was a man, not a ghost, who had walked through this room. She set her lantern on the chest of drawers and stared at the mysterious wall, as if she could will the wall to open with her mind.

On the wall beside the chest of drawers was a yellowed gas lamp. Guessing that it was some sort of mechanism like the nail heads, she turned the lamp's key as if to give it gas. With a click, a piece of the wall swung away and opened for her to a cozy drawing room.

What use a solitary killer had for a drawing room, she had no idea. Surely he did not regularly entertain guests. Nevertheless, in the corner nearest to her, a regular sofa with quaint upholstery sat beside a tall grandfather clock. Across the room, a dining table and a single chair communed next to a magnificent harp. To the left of these was another ordinary door.

She casually opened the door without any tricks, but stifled a cry of shock when she beheld what could only have been the room of a madman. Black drapes hung lifelessly from the high ceiling, around which a staff of musical notes repeated endlessly, circling the room in strange, scratchy handwriting. A massive pipe organ occupied the entire far wall, its disquietingly pallid cylinders ascending to the high ceiling like the emaciated souls of the damned reaching for salvation from Hell. But the very center of the room held the most disturbing vision: a polished coffin shrouded by a red brocade canopy suspended grimly from the ceiling like an executioner's noose.

What psychological game did this man play, in first directing her through a fanciful room of mirrors, then returning her to the familiar, and yet again disorienting her? Appalled by the evil scene (she was, after all, a young lady and _not_ herself a commissioner of the Sûreté), she quickly returned to the homely and more ordinary drawing room. Across from the door to the horrible death chamber, she spied another smaller door partially covered by a curtain.

Beyond this door, she discovered the most fantastic sight of all: an immense cavern yawned so wide and so tall that she could hardly see its sides or ceiling, and stretching across the floor of the cavern was a whimsical subterranean lake! Its surreal waters, an unusual silky ripple of green and purple hues, reflected the light of her lantern in dancing patterns in the darkness. The soothing sound of the waves gently caressing the banks broke the silence. A damp and musty odor pervaded the stale air.

Docked at Alice's feet was an aged boat. She had no way of knowing where the lake would lead her, but she certainly could not leave the house the same way that she had entered. Hoping that the cavern would lead to open air, she stepped carefully into the boat, released the mooring, and rowed clumsily into the dark cavern, trusting Providence to guide her.

The somber residence under the Paris Opera faded into the shadows, and the darkness reduced her world to the enveloping light of her tiny lantern. The rhythmic splashing of her strokes tolled the passage of time. Alice feared that she had become lost in the gloom, when at last she noticed a steep staircase cut into the cavern's ragged wall.

She docked the boat and tied it to an iron ring protruding from the rock, then thrust her lantern in front of her and climbed the winding stairs. At the top was a grille door exactly like an iron sewer gate. It opened easily with a latch from the inside, but once out, Alice was dismayed to discover that opening the gate from the outside would require an actual key, and no means of picking the lock would force the gate to yield. Turning about, however, she recognized her own Rue Scribe and realized that her path had taken her nearly to her front doorstep! She entered her house with such careful stealth that not even Heloise was roused.

Only a lone shadow, watching from the corner of the street, knew of her nocturnal adventure into the cellars of the opera and beneath the secret trap door of the Opera Ghost.

_**a/n: This chapter was longer than the others and came a bit tardy. I hope it was worth the wait! :)**_


	5. Has the Ghost Returned?

Chapter 5: Has the Ghost Returned?

Impatient and confused, Armand Moncharmin paced in his office, a mysterious scrap of parchment folded in his hand. The troubled Opera manager occasionally paused from his pacing, unfolded the paper, read again the strange memorandum written therein, and released a huff of frustration from his lungs before refolding the paper and returning to his pacing about. At last he heard the door burst open behind him, and his colleague and co-manager, Firmin Richard, entered the room in a rush.

"Armand, what has happened? You've roused me from my sleep! What could possibly require our urgent attention this early in the morning!"

Moncharmin unfolded the paper and handed it to Richard who, eyeing the note, already guessed the problem. "Not the Opera Ghost again!" he groaned wearily, taking the paper from Moncharmin and scanning its contents:

"Dearest Managers:  
Congratulations on the success of my opera's début. I'm delighted that you deemed it worthy of your stage. I expected to be paid my legal share of the ticket sales, but I now have the unfortunate business of demanding this payment from you. You may send it to me in an envelope to my box seats this very morning. I trust you must know, by now, what to expect if I do not receive the funds.  
Kind regards,  
O.G.

"This preposterous prankster refuses to let us alone!" Richard moaned when he had finished reading.

"What's worse, this communication didn't come in the mail! It was sitting on my desk when I arrived this morning!"

"Months of quiet, and now this! I really had hoped that our ghost had been exorcised."

"What are we to do? Firmin, we can't call the police. They're already hounding us, asking again about the murder of Joseph Buquet, and they created such a scandal last time, making fools of us! And we even performed that Ghost's damned opera hoping to draw him out of hiding. I don't know if our reputation will ever recover from that performance! All for nothing, because he didn't show himself, and now this!"

As Moncharmin caught his breath, Richard considered. "You know, by right he should have a share of the profits, if indeed he wrote that opera. If we pay him, at least he's not stealing anything. The money really does belong to him."

"I never could have imagined that we would wrong the Opera Ghost!" Moncharmin exploded, flipping his arms in the air. "Now _we_ are stealing from _him_? This joke has gone too far! And what about first-tier box five? That's _not_ his box!"

"What else are we to do? We can't risk more… incidents; there's enough criticism about our management as it is. If he starts asking for 240,000 francs again then we'll have a problem, but right now, I think this request is actually reasonable."

Moncharmin sighed. "I really think I should like to meet this ghost."

Richard stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "It certainly seems as though we could use his advice in our matters of management, especially in improving the chorus group."

"Really, Richard! Are you suggesting that we resort to divination through a spectre in order to improve the institution under our care? Surely by now we can do our job ourselves!"

But Richard would not give up the idea. "Listen to me, my friend. No one knows better than I how terrible our condition is, after the disappearance of Mademoiselle Daaé. We need an expert to completely reorder our affairs, especially for the singers! Now, when I first perused the score for _Don Juan_, I realized I was reading the work of a maestro." He put his hand up to silence Moncharmin's objections. "Of course, the subject matter, or maybe the candid exploration of it, was not to our taste. Anyway, only a truly gifted composer could conjure from music those disturbing sensations we all felt during _Don Juan Triumphant_. It was like sorcery!"

"Quiet, Richard! Watch what you say!" Moncharmin protested, covering the mouth of his colleague. "It _was_ like sorcery," he whispered, close to Richard's ear, "Too much like it. That ghost has possessed us all! Who knows what other incredible magic he can inflict on us!"

"Armand," Richard whispered, once Moncharmin had removed his hand, "he could be listening to us _right now_!"

Both managers fell silent and neither one dared to move. Their wide eyes scanned the room, expecting to spot an eavesdropper hiding somewhere close by. But, of course, no one else was in the room, and it might have seemed ridiculous for them to suspect that they were not by themselves. The astonishing power of _Don Juan_ had terrified them both, although neither would admit to the other just how much the performance had affected him. Although they each had speculated before that the other was playing a practical joke, they now were certain that a supernatural force was behind the mysterious messages from O.G. The music of _Don Juan_ had branded their hearts with the searing iron of its chords, and both men now feared that they had permanently forfeited their virtue. And it was the Opera Ghost who had accomplished this desecration—through music that had looked innocent enough on the page, and that had sounded harmless during rehearsals, but that had reigned supreme on the sinister night of its début. A nameless evil was operating from the pages of _Don Juan Triumphant_!

"Firmin," Moncharmin whispered finally, still searching the room with his frightened eyes, "we shouldn't tempt fate by inviting the Devil to train our troupes."

"What choice do we have, Armand? We already manage a _cursed_ opera house!"

"Let's just give him his money and have done with him."

Without responding, Richard sat at the desk and produced a pen from some drawer and paper from another, and set to writing.

Moncharmin looked on in confusion, his mouth hanging open. "What are you doing, Richard? You're not writing _correspondence_ to our Ghost…? Richard! What are you writing?"

Richard set down the pen, blotted the paper, shook it ceremoniously while clearing his throat, and finally began to read what was indeed a letter to the dreaded Opera Ghost:

"Our kind Opera Ghost:  
We were very happy to oblige you in performing your excellent opera. Please accept our humble gratitude for having brought it to our attention. As for the matter of the ticket sales, we are embarrassed that in our admiration we neglected to pay you your rightful share. We had not received word from you, and thought that you must have taken to haunting some other building or maybe not haunting at all, and that as a ghost you did not need these revenues. But we will rectify this misunderstanding at once, so enclosed are the 90,617 francs owed you for the performance of your exceptional work.  
...Furthermore, since Mademoiselle Daaé has left us, we must improve our lead singers and chorus. We would accept, with much appreciation, and in fact beg of you, any advice you wish to put forth as to how we should proceed.  
We remain your humble servants and Opera managers, etc.—"

"Richard, its too much!" Moncharmin complained. "I might understand why we should pacify him, but you go too far!"

"Trust me, Armand," Richard answered calmly as he carefully folded the letter, "This ghost could be the key to our success."

He turned to the safe behind the desk, dialed the combination in a flurry of fingers, and drew from the safe a generous stack of francs, counting diligently the exact value of 90,617. Moncharmin could only stare.

* * *

The dark theatre echoed from their conversation as the managers arrived at first-tier box five. Two rows of chairs with red velvet cushions stood like silent red sentinels.

"Where do we put the envelope?" asked Moncharmin.

"On one of the chairs."

Richard deposited the letter on the rightmost chair in the front row. As they watched the envelope, both managers backed away toward the door and struggled to fit both of their bodies through the exit at the same time. Neither one wanted to give the other an opportunity to steal the 90,617 francs.

They stood in the hallway, sheepishly thinking of what to do next. Once the deed was done and the envelope was out of their hands, common sense returned to them.

Moncharmin cleared his throat. "Firmin, I'm beginning to think that the letter was not from the ghost after all. His notes usually came by post, but this one was sitting on my desk. And we haven't heard from the ghost since Mademoiselle Daaé's disappearance. This could be a joker, and he's getting rich from our naïveté!"

"Should we take the money back?" Richard asked hesitantly. "What if the letter _was_ from the ghost?"

"Yes, yes, let's take it back. That letter couldn't have been from an actual ghost."

Together they squeezed through the entrance to the room. Without warning, Richard stopped, holding back Moncharmin from the seats. The color had drained from Richard's face.

"Armand, that's _not_ our envelope!"

Indeed, the managers had delivered a white envelope, but the one now before them on the crimson seat was black as coal.

Richard tiptoed toward the rightmost forward seat and carefully lifted the envelope. "It has the managerial seal."

"Richard, your jokes have gone too far!" Moncharmin exploded.

"Monsieur, you came in here with me! You saw me place it on the seat. Then we left at the same time. Now you accuse me of switching the envelopes, while I was out there with you in the hallway? Use your head, Moncharmin!"

"Well, how else did the white envelope turn black?" Moncharmin asked foolishly. The chairs, like so many cardinals kneeling in prayer, offered no answer.

Ignoring his companion, Richard opened the envelope and read aloud the message it contained:

"Kindest Managers,

I have received the 90,617 francs. Thank you. However, I must humbly decline your request for advice, as I am confident that Monsieur Richard is very capable of managing the musical affairs of the Opera, and Monsieur Moncharmin is equally capable of managing the Opera's administrative duties. I also regret to inform you that I will no longer attend your operas in first-tier box five, and I release you to rent it at your discretion. Please convey to Madame Giry my regards; she was an excellent attendant.

I shall remain yours sincerely,

O.G."

Utterly confounded, Moncharmin could only exclaim: "_WHAT_?"

"It seems we are rid of the ghost at last," Richard answered seriously (and one might even say, he answered sadly).

And so it was that in a single morning, the Opera Ghost reappeared and then vanished again. Perplexed, the two managers returned to their office in a daze. The black envelope and its letter were locked in the managerial safe, and they began the day's administrative tasks as usual. But neither of them could turn his mind from this puzzling question: what had elicited such a change in their usually arrogant and menacing Opera Ghost?

_**a/n: I'm sure readers are wondering where Erik has gone. You'll see him again very soon.**_


	6. A Persian Legend

Chapter 6: A Persian Legend

Pensively, Alice turned another page in the volume she was reading. Her research at the Bibliothèque Nationale had consumed the entire afternoon, while she perched at a wide mahogany table and searched through maritime handbooks and volumes on India's history. She had hoped to find the source of the strange noose discovered around the neck of the murder victim found at the Place Denfert-Rochereau.

In her left hand, she unconsciously wound the rope around her fingers, its intricate knot resting in her palm. As if the fibrous texture invoked remembrance of a distant dream, she stared down at the knot and recalled the scene of the murder. The dead man's eyes had been open, bulging out of his skull like two slimy eggs from the suffocating effects of the noose. But Alice had also seen the terrible fear written on his frozen expression. Before the man died, he had received a horrible fright, worse than the mere realization that he was going to die. What had that man seen?

She returned her focus to the book before her on the table and slowly turned another page. Idly her eyes scanned the text as her mind continued to wander. Perhaps she had begun her research too hastily, she thought. She should have prepared herself before plunging into a pile of books. Instead, it seemed that her entire day had been exhausted in a futile search, and her weary thoughts were beginning to run in circles while her slender fingers readied to turn yet another page softened with years of use.

But something on the leaf caught her eye. Blinking in confusion, she leaned closer. As if her thoughts had conjured it, there on the page was an ink-drawn image of what she held in her hand! The scratchy, illustrated chord wound tightly around itself like a deadly cobra, its caption naming it the Punjab Lasso and describing how the knot was tied. It also noted that the lasso's strength derived from the jute fiber of its rope. Alice's tired mind wandered as she read again the name of this unusual weapon. Had she read before of the Punjab Lasso? She felt as though she recognized its name. In her twisted thoughts, she began to imagine that she was somehow linked to the history of this bizarre lasso…

A sudden noise echoing in the empty library awakened her from her reverie. Startled, she sprang from her chair like a bird taking wing. The noise was only the grandfather clock striking seven, and she placed a hand over her bosom to steady her heart. Already the sun had nearly set outside the library's tall windows. The librarian was making his rounds lighting the lamps and pulling the curtains closed. Perhaps, Alice reasoned, she was skittish from sitting in the library for too long without exercise.

Still reflecting on the knot's illustration, Alice rose to stretch her legs and wound her way through the aisles of musty volumes. The corridors were deadly silent—the library would only be open a few more hours, and most of the patrons had left to return home before nightfall. Stopping to rub her tired eyelids, Alice found herself at the Near East collections. These were among her favorite books, with descriptions and diagrams of places and palaces that most people could only visit in dreams. And yet, according to the information, the geography was real, and its people truly exist. Alice smiled as she recalled her meeting with the Persian, and his unusual drawing room. It seemed her books had come to life.

Curious, she pulled out a volume on Persia and thumbed through the pages. Another half-hour passed as she knelt in the corridor, admiring the beautiful images. But there was something unexpected about one picture. To her astonishment, hanging from the iron tree of a chamber of mirrors was the same noose she held in her hand. A shiver ran along her shoulders. What trick of fate kept bringing this terrible weapon before her eyes? Above the illustration, the caption described the torture chamber and its terrible Punjab Lasso. What's more, the text informed her that the Shah had ordered the execution of all who had been involved in the creation of his palace in Mazenderan, including the making of the horrid torture chamber, so that such structures could_ never be recreated__!_

Alice's heart skipped a beat. Hadn't she seen an exact replica beneath the Opera? The room she had believed to be so beautiful was in fact a chamber of torture! Certainly, then, _someone_ who had produced this awful room intended for pain and suffering had escaped his fate and had built a second chamber. The idea seemed too fantastic and incredible, but she had seen the torture chamber with her own eyes, and here she held its weapon in her slender hands! She opened her fist and stared at the knot, trembling with realization. The horrible massacres in Mazenderan…. torture…. a weapon for inflicting agonizing pain… the architect of all this was in Paris!

"Mademoiselle Mifroid," a startling voice whispered behind her.

Alarmed, Alice turned to find the Persian standing in the aisle. She sighed and let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Forgive me, Monsieur, I wasn't expecting you." She stood and returned the book to its shelf, still trembling. The night was proving to be unnerving.

What she had been reading had not escaped his notice, nor had the broken weapon in her hand.

"Mademoiselle, I have warned you about the deadly secrets of the Opera, and I've cautioned you that these are not secrets best unearthed."

"Monsieur, you are not an officer of the police," she said with indignation, throwing his words back at him. "I do what I please. You can't prevent me from looking at a few books."

"But I can inform a certain commissioner of the Sûreté that his daughter has broken into the Paris Opera at night, to look for a ghost whom he believes does not exist."

Alice stepped back in surprise, outrage betrayed in her eyes. "How do you know where I've been? And how did you find me here? Have you been following me?"

From behind the shelves, the floor creaked with slow footsteps.

The Persian peered into the dark aisles with his wide, jade eyes. "We should not allow our conversation to be overheard," he whispered to her. "Come."

They walked silently out of the library, winding through the great labyrinth of shelves. Twice they thought they heard a shuffle or a knock behind them, but each time they both turned and found the space to be empty.

Once outside, Alice waited in the warm night air while the Persian frantically searched for a hansom cab. They asked to be driven to the Rue Scribe. The Persian did not resume their private discussion until they were well away from the deserted library. "I was not following you that night, Mademoiselle. I was… looking for something in the street when I saw you climb out of one of the sewer gates leading to the Opera. I could only guess that you had gained entrance through some clandestine means."

Sitting opposite him in the dark cab, Alice fought to control her frustration at having been discovered. "And how did you know that the gate's tunnel led to the Opera's cellars rather than to its sewers?"

The Persian looked away into the darkness outside the cab, avoiding her eyes. "That is my own affair."

"Or is that one of _Erik's_ secrets?" she asked sarcastically.

"Mademoiselle, I can see that you are not taking kindly to my concern. If you knew what lay beneath the Opera, you would not venture down into it alone, or at all, for that matter."

"I have already been down there, Monsieur, and I saw all of it."

The Persian stared at her. "How much did you see?" he asked, his voice tight with astonishment. "How did you escape with your life?"

"I found a trap door next to a set piece from _Le Roi de Lahore_—"

"_Ya Allah_," the Persian groaned. "You went straight into his torture chamber then."

"Yes," she replied, looking strangely at her companion. How did he already know that if he hadn't been following her?

"But tell me, how did you escape? How _could_ you escape?" He leaned towards her excitedly.

"There was a small cellar, with barrels in it, beneath the floor—"

"Yes, yes, you push the pin to open the trapdoor under the iron branch… but I know that. But how did you escape?"

"You seem to be very excited to hear this story, Monsieur."

He made an effort to control himself. "It has been an obsession ever since I myself was in that room. I couldn't solve the chamber's riddle."

Uncertain what he meant, and disturbed that he could have left the torture chamber without knowing how it was done, she nevertheless explained to him how she escaped the chamber and the other trapdoors she encountered while in the house beside the lake.

"I see," he commented at last, stroking his black beard thoughtfully, "It's so simple… But Mademoiselle, you must believe me when I tell you that you are in very grave danger, and you should never go down to that house again."

"But why, Monsieur?"

"Because I fear the chamber's architect has returned to his abode!"

She remembered what she had been reading in the library when the Persian had appeared. "Monsieur, how do you know this man?"

He smiled at her question and leaned back in his seat. "You mean you haven't learned that yet, from your library research?"

"Either you are the man himself, or maybe somehow you saved him from execution."

It had only been a guess, but her rapid deduction surprised him. "Yes, I saved his life."

Her confidence growing, Alice pulled the severed Punjab Lasso from her pocket. "Monsieur, we _all_ may be in danger. A man was murdered at the entrance to the catacombs, and our architect's weapon was around the victim's neck."

"Ah!" he sighed, eyeing the rope with wide eyes in what could only be described as a look of paralyzed fear. "When did the murder take place?"

"The police found the body early last week. That's why I initially came to you."

"And who was the victim?"

"It seems he was just a homeless man."

"I see." He returned to stroking his beard pensively.

"Monsieur, I can tell the police what I know. I will lead them down there myself, and then they can search for him. This Punjab Lasso is our proof. The books put it in the torture chamber. Everything fits. We just need your help to tell the police what he looks like."

The Persian shook his head and sighed. "If you truly were in his house, and you didn't catch him there, then no one will find him. Take this token you have in your hand as a warning —if you go looking for him even now, he may find you before you find him, and his welcome will not be hospitable."

At last the Persian's warnings had their intended effect. Frightened, Alice touched her slender, fragile neck. Indeed, the danger was real. Slowly she realized how rashly she had behaved, how near to death she had come by foolishly exploring the subterranean house of a man who invented torture chambers! _My God_, she thought, _the gun powder_…

"But… he murdered men, Monsieur. He must be caught and punished for his crimes." She frowned. "It seems to me that you are protecting this man."

"That man has murdered far more souls in far more ways than your innocent gender could ever imagine." The Persian looked down at his hand. He had pulled several hairs from his beard without noticing. "But remember, I saved his life before, and with reason. You do not yet know all of his secrets. Yes, he's a genius whose hands can cause death, but those same hands can lift our lives to the heavens through his fascinating talents. Tell me honestly, Mademoiselle, what was your first reaction to his torture chamber? Were you terrified for your life?"

In answer she lowered her eyes, ashamed at what she knew her reaction had been.

"No," he continued, "I know that rather you must have been enchanted by its beauty. It was the same for me in Mazenderan when he unveiled its first creation. That such an invention was constructed for such dark deeds was really the furthest expectation from my mind. But even in the death that surrounds it, is it not magnificent? Like a work of art. And so it is with all of his creations. You may already know, he built not only that room, but constructed almost the entire palace for the Shah." And he told her of so many incredible inventions: a floor of polished glass that appeared to the eye to be water, and so many secret passages that seemed to make the Shah vanish or appear as he willed.

"But, Monsieur," she protested as the cab came to stop before her apartments, "his architecture doesn't make his crimes any less serious. What could possibly justify such sinister unconcern for human life?"

"Ah, but you do not yet know the saddest part," he answered mysteriously. "Erik has his reasons. But his reasons are his secrets." He helped her onto the street, then paid the driver. His apartment on the Rue Rivoli was within a reasonable walking distance, and it was perhaps the last comfortable night before autumn descended in all its fury. As she took the steps to her front door, he called after her this strange warning: "Be careful, Mademoiselle. The story of the Opera Ghost was written by a quill of human bone—and its ink the tears of human sorrow."

With that he left, his footsteps fading into the night as Alice stared after him with her forehead knitted in confusion. What could he mean by those words?


	7. A Southbound Train

Chapter 7: A Southbound Train

When the Persian returned to his apartments that night, his servant informed him of an unexpected guest waiting in the drawing room. The Persian had few companions and suspected his visitor was an opera ghost. He therefore quickly removed his coat and gloves, threw them into Darius's arms, then attended to his guest.

To make himself at home while awaiting the Persian, Erik had transformed the charming drawing room into a chamber of darkness. Although the hour grew late, he neglected the lamps completely. A dying fire threw long shadows across the floor. The Opera Ghost's own glass decanter of cognac stood open on a table and refracted the firelight, fanning it onto the tabletop like a broken mirror reflecting the red flames of Hades. He knew the Persian would have no hard drink to offer, being somewhat a man of principles. Resting on the settee, with his back to the Persian, the Phantom drained his drink.

"The weather tonight is… irresistible," he said smoothly while reaching for the decanter. Neither man spoke as the cognac gurgled into his small glass. "Did you enjoy your promenade?"

Overcoming the surprise at finding Erik in his drawing room after hearing nothing for so many days, the Persian cleared his throat and answered affirmatively.

"You did not walk in the Tuileries this evening, though." He replaced the decanter's stopper without looking at his host, and his threatening pause caused the Persian's fear to incubate. "You have come from the Rue Scribe."

He sipped from his glass while his words sunk in. The Persian was astounded. Erik knew what he had not even told his own servant. How could one not attribute such omniscience to a practice of the dark arts? It was as if the corpse could read his mind!

"You came from the Rue Scribe," he repeated, reveling in the Persian's apprehension as it radiated through the room like electricity. "… where you conversed with the excitable daughter of one commissioner of the Sûreté—"

The Persian found his voice. "How could you know that?" he demanded as he wheeled around the settee to see what crystal ball the magician wielded that had betrayed the Persian's actions. But he could barely see in the dim light. The Phantom's black mask reflected the copper light of the fire's stifled flames. In the shadows beneath his brow, his golden stare burned like two smoldering coals. He had uncharacteristically removed his swallowtail jacket, which now lay folded over one arm of the settee along with his top hat, and he had turned up his shirtsleeves. His cravat hung loosely from his opened collar, and his waistcoat was unfastened.

"Aha!" he replied sardonically, "Not only am I everywhere in the Opera, but I'm also all over Paris!" To this epithet he added his hysterical laughter before tasting more cognac.

The Persian said nothing, but sank into the chair facing the sofa.

"You are betraying Erik's secrets!"

"You're wrong! She asked me to give your description and location to the police! I refused. In fact, I've been trying to discourage her hunt from the moment she sought my help."

"But she found the torture chamber! Opened every secret as if it were her own house."

The Persian watched as his guest refilled his glass. "You can hardly blame _me_ for her success. I could never solve the torture chamber, let alone your other puzzles."

"Ah," Erik sighed, leaning back in the settee. "Then she has more brains than you do."

He tilted the glass from side to side and watched the jeweled liquid roll in tormented waves. His terrible lips twisted into something like a smile before they curled around the edge of the glass and slowly dragged the suffering drink into his dead mouth.

"Alice Mifroid may have been lucky to have escaped the torture chamber, but she will meet my vengeance before she succeeds in catching the Opera Ghost. She'll never dare enter my house again! Rest assured, when Christine comes, Erik will have his privacy."

The announcement in _L'Epoque_ proclaiming Erik's death was part of the Persian's promise to send word to Christine Daaé of Erik's fate. Mlle. Daaé, the famous opera singer, had been Erik's captive under the Opera, and he had released her upon her word that she would return to bury him when he died. The Persian had almost forgotten.

"Erik," he began cautiously, removing the decanter from his guest's hands and placing it on the mantel (resisting the urge to throw it into the fire), "This madness for Mademoiselle Daaé is destroying you. How long have you been drinking? You need to distract your mind—work on your compositions. Drinking yourself senseless will only bring more misery."

Divested of his drink, the monster rubbed his hands over his face. His musician's fingertips felt only the hard, unfeeling façade of his mask. He was enduring his emotions like a weary captain navigating through foul weather, and he could only keep to the helm and ride out the storm, or abandon ship—and feed the hungry waves. Hadn't the latter option already been denied him? Then let him drink, to quell the maddening effects of the ship's precarious sway!

"No," he whispered. "The only relief from my sadness is her company. She's returning even now, as we converse. She expects to find me dead, but I will stay alive, for her. And when she comes, we'll continue where you interrupted us, that day you were in my torture chamber."

Although the poor man had resisted with all his willpower, he again believed that Christine loved him. His inebriated mind would not be persuaded otherwise, the Persian knew. When one has clung to hope for so long, it's too painful to finally admit the futility of that endeavor, and so the heart still believes—although the mind already found folly in that faith. A change of subject, the Persian hoped, would distract his friend from his melancholy thoughts.

"The police found a man killed by your damnable lasso in the catacombs."

"What's your point?" the corpse growled, leaning back on the sofa and massaging his forehead where it peeked above his mask.

"What are your plans for Mademoiselle Mifroid? You said that you'll have vengeance. Murder is wrong, Erik! I didn't save _your_ life for you to terminate the lives of others."

"I will not _kill_ the commissioner's daughter. Nevertheless, I will make her suffer. Not from physical pain." He fisted his hands and stared at the dying fire. How he wished it were the only pain he himself had to endure! "I will give her just a taste of mental anguish. She now believes she has bested the Opera Ghost? Ha! Even Erik suffers for his mistakes. This girl has committed an error of her own and is about to discover the consequences! And she will know that it was all her fault, and it cannot be undone!"

The Persian was unsure what to do. He wanted to try to stop his friend from this uncertain scheme, but the monster was even more resolute than usual, due to his intoxication. And he shook with such ferocity as he spoke, from the bitter wisdom that revenge will not be sweet enough, for the intended victim is only one of many who have denied him his privacy.

Erik took a moment to compose himself. The fire released a hiss of air. "Daroga, allow me to repay you for hauling my miserable body from the river." Before the Persian could demure, his friend pulled a pistol from under the swallowtail jacket.

Stuttering, the Persian leapt to his feet as fast as lightening.

The Phantom laughed as he slowly unfolded himself from the settee to tower before his frightened host. He pointed the barrel of the gun at the Persian's chest.

"Do you recognize the weapon?" he taunted. He opened his hand and allowed the pistol to swing free on his trigger finger. The ivory handle glowed red in the firelight. Certainly, the Persian recognized it—it was his own.

"I lost it when I came to your house with the Vicomte deChagny."

Erik dropped the weapon into the Persian's outstretched hand. "The barrel fits a .22 round. It's not loaded."

The Persian let out the breath he had been holding. "Nor was it when we came to your house. We did not intend to shoot." He sank into his chair and admired the gun, tracing the intricate trellis of vines carved on the ivory handle. Artfully sculpted, each tiny leaf curled this way or that, or rolled into itself, until the vines met the long and slender steel barrel. As Erik had said, the caps were empty. The Persian sighed with relief. Erik had only been toying with him, playing a cruel joke by feigning his intent to send a bullet to his heart.

The Persian looked up at his visitor, who had not moved from where he stood, watching. "There was a _pair_ of revolvers. Where's the other one?"

He could not see the dark smile that spread across the Phantom's silhouetted profile. "Perhaps it will turn up later." He returned to the sofa to don his jacket and top hat.

The Persian again sprung from his seat. "You're leaving, then? You haven't told me exactly what you've planned for Mademoiselle Mifroid! I'm warning you, Erik, don't hurt her."

At this, the monster turned, and the depths of his burning eyes contained a fiery tempest ignited by the Persian's assumptions. His frightened host stopped short.

"Rest assured then, _gentle_ Daroga," the Phantom snarled, his voice laced with the sticky-sweet smell of alcohol. "As I told you, Mademoiselle Mifroid will not be physically injured. You don't believe me, that one human being could hurt another without contact? Come to my Opera tomorrow and see for yourself, so that your curiosity _might_ be sated!"

He pulled opened the door with such force it might have been ripped off its hinges, and tore it shut behind him with a resounding slam.

The Persian was left staring at his own front door. At least Erik hadn't threatened mankind with diabolical destruction! But there was still the matter of Christine Daaé. What the Persian now feared more than the destruction of Paris was this woman's return.

Erik's love for the soprano had him descending into madness. What would he do when she came to bury him and found him alive? Or worse—if she has already married her lover, the Vicomte, Erik would not be able to control his jealousy. And when would she arrive? The Persian didn't know where she lived. He only knew that she and the Vicomte left Paris for the North, but he never discovered if they traveled to her former home in Perros-Guirec, or to Scandinavia, the land of her birth. Or had they gone as far as the North Pole, to where the Vicomte had been appointed to lead an expedition? How long before they reached Paris?

The Persian stood there, his mind spinning, until his faithful servant shook him out of his reverie and pushed a heavy envelope into his hands. Darius explained that, while the Persian was out, he had gone to the Saint-Lazare station after receiving notice that there was a package addressed to the Persian. It had arrived by special post on a train heading for Provence, an unusual way of receiving mail.

The envelope offered no return address.

The color drained from the Persian's face. He dismissed his servant and dropped onto the settee, his legs giving way beneath him. Silently praying to awaken from his nightmare, he at last he tore open the paper with trembling fingers and read the letter he found inside:

"Our dear friend,  
We read your unfortunate news in _L'Epoque_ and offer our condolences. Our recent nuptials, however, and the expectancy of a birth in the coming year prevent us from fulfilling our promise to the departed. We have enclosed the articles that will allow you to find his body and perform the burial. May he rest in eternal peace.  
We remain forever in your debt,  
Christine and Raoul deChagny"

Christine wouldn't come! It was a most ironic twist of fate.

Unable to sit still, the Persian paced to his window. The note had been wholly unexpected. Although his friend had behaved imprudently with Christine, the Persian had honestly believed that she would honor her promise. He could have prepared himself for what would happen when she found her Phantom alive, and could have protected his friend against the unbridled emotions that would have boiled upon seeing her again. But nothing could have prepared him to receive this letter. And Erik had drowned his love in cognac not ten minutes before! It was as if Fate was determined to dash the poor man's hopes across the breakers.

Now, to distract his disappointed thoughts, the Persian watched through his window as couples idled in the Tulieries, their arms around each other. They lounged on benches and gazed into each other's eyes as the glorious moonlight warmed their smiling faces. The Persian sighed, and the moisture of his breath upon the window panes veiled the lovers from sight like a curtain closing at the end of a scene.

He turned his gaze to the letter and the envelope, which he still held. The envelope was not yet empty, and he tipped it upside-down to dump the contents into his free hand.

From the package fell a wedding band and an iron key.

The Persian stared at the two items as his mind flooded with memories. He had seen Christine wearing the ring, which assured her Erik's protection. She had promised to return after his death and slip the wedding band onto his finger before the burial, and the iron key would have allowed her entry into the Phantom's domain to find his body. But she would not fulfill her vow! Christine's pity for Erik had waned as her distance from his Opera grew, and now not even news of his _death_ would move her to show kindness to the unfortunate man. The world offered no love, no compassion, and no sincerity!

His anger raging, the Persian left his window and in three large strides reached his fireplace, where he flung the envelope and all of its contents into the flames. With his hands balled into fists so tight that his nails dug crescents into his palms, he watched the letter and envelope ignite with a bright blue flash of light. His friend would never know what became of Christine's promise. He would wait faithfully, never knowing that she would not return.

And it was no wonder that Erik was the monster he had become, for he had never received humane treatment from anyone! Suddenly losing his strength to stand, the Persian collapsed against the mantel, choking back his grief. He could not control his angry tears, despite biting his fist against his heartache. In a sudden fury he hurled Erik's forgotten glass decanter into the fireplace, where it shattered with a satisfactory crash and fed the flames with its infernal contents. Darius rushed to the room in alarm as the Persian fell to the floor, weeping. Finding his gentle master in such a passionate state, he could only lend his own tears as well, and the two men mourned the unhappy life and uncontrollable destiny of the Opera Ghost.


	8. Humiliation!

Chapter 8: Humiliation!

The Sûreté entered the Opera with much pomp and circumstance early the next morning. Alice directed the men through the winding corridors to the set piece from _Le Roi de Lahore_. She had approached her father the night before, explained what she had found out in the library and confessed that she had descended into a torture chamber exactly like the one described in a treatise. The commissioner hardly believed her, but she insisted, and it was unethical not to follow a lead—no matter how fanciful it sounded.

Muscling their way past a gaping crowd of performers and stagehands, the Sûreté followed Alice and the commissioner down a set of stairs. Following _them_ was Armand Moncharmin, nearly hanging on the tails of the last man in formation. He shuffled and shoved his way down the middle of two rows of policemen, all the while invoking his managerial position and the manners of gentlemen and the rights of Frenchmen. He didn't reach the front of the line until they were in the third cellar, which smelled of mold and rotting paper.

"Monsieur, you must tell me what you are about!" he shouted at the commissioner's back.

Mifroid turned. "Monsieur," he answered while Moncharmin caught his breath, "I believe we've found your ghost's hiding place. My daughter discovered a secret trap door in the floor of this chamber which leads to his residence."

"To his residence? And when did I give Mademoiselle permission to explore our cellars?"

A threatening look from Mifroid had him reconsidering his tone.

To Moncharmin's surprise, the lady herself replied. "The trap door opens by a pin, beside the set piece for _Le Roi de Lahore_…" She skirted around to the back of a set.

Moncharmin and Mifroid followed her to the palace steps. Her slender finger pointed confidently to the floor beside a pile of lumber, but her face held a look of despair and disbelief. The pin—and the trap door—were not there.

"Where is it, Mademoiselle?" Moncharmin asked.

She withdrew her pointing finger and allowed her arm to drop. "It's a very small device and difficult to see. Finding it will take some time." She gathered her skirts and crouched low to the ground, her eyes passing slowly over the dusty floor.

The men, all of them, stood awkwardly while she searched. Sometimes she gave a cry of triumph, then realized that she had only found a small pebble instead of a pin, or a crack in the wall instead of the square outline of a trapdoor.

She felt her face grow hot. "Have your stagehands moved this piece recently, Monsieur? Is this exactly where it stood during the performance of _Don Juan Triumphant_?"

Her innocent voice, naming the infamous paramour, echoed across the silent cellar.

"No, Mademoiselle, our stagehands don't intrude in places where they know they shouldn't be! We haven't shown _Le Roi de Lahore_ or any of these other operas in here for a long time. Everything is where it has always been."

Still crouching on the floor, Alice allowed her eyes to wander along the ground far away from the assembly. The room was quite large, and she could not be absolutely sure that no one had moved the set. She stood and brushed her hands together to wipe the dust from them. She was a spectacle—dirt had crusted on her fingers, and some dust had even smeared across her cheek. The skirts of her pale dress were now yellow from the floor's filth. In this state she looked at her father and confessed, "We will have to search the entire room."

Moncharmin cursed loudly in the echoing chamber.

* * *

Mifroid felt fortunate to have brought so many officers. Everyone searched the cellar, collecting dirt in their hands in their efforts to uncover clues to the trapdoor. Even Moncharmin assisted the search against his better judgment. Alice flitted about the cellar attending to the calls of the officers: one of them found a pin—no, it was only a lose nail. Another found an opening—it was only a long crack in the wall's mortar. Finally Moncharmin allowed them to move the set pieces and even the pile of lumber, but under each set was only bare floor, without even any loose dirt. It was as Moncharmin had said, none of the sets had been moved in a long time.

The Opera manager finally exploded. "Mademoiselle, _there is no trapdoor here_!"

"Please, Monsieur, if we just look a little longer—"

"I've had enough! Get out of my Opera, all of you!"

"It _must_ be here! I saw it myself!" Curly strands of her chestnut hair had come loose from her chignon and fell into her wide-eyed face. Her clothes were a mess. She looked deranged.

Mifroid cleared his throat. "Alice, you've only been dreaming about the Persian's stories! We've searched all morning. I've put the entire corps at your disposal, and you've wasted our time looking for a girlish fantasy! It's disgraceful!"

She turned to Moncharmin, who was herding the officers out of the cellar. "It was the _ghost_—he removed the trapdoor. You know better than any of us what powers he has! The trapdoor is gone now, but it was here before! Believe me!"

Indeed, he knew what this Phantom could do. He remembered his recent misadventure with Richard and the envelope conundrum. It could well be as she said, that a trapdoor was here before that now isn't there. In the Paris Opera, it would be perfectly natural for a trapdoor to disappear without even leaving behind a hole.

But she had trespassed, interfered, and had even involved the police. "Get out, all of you, and don't return, or by God I'll have you all sacked!"

Ashamed and defeated, Alice followed the police out of the Opera. When she fell into step with her father, he directly began scolding her as if she were a young child. She was already so embarrassed that she merely watched her feet as he explained the difference between reality and make-believe.

Then she had an idea. "Papa, I know you don't believe me, but when I went beneath the trap door I brought a lantern with me, and I left it inside the sewer gate on our Rue Scribe. If it's there, then you know I speak the truth. At least let us see if it's there."

Mifroid decided to oblige her. Perhaps, once she saw that nothing was in the sewer, she would realize the whole adventure had been a dream. She was desperate to find something to make her story real.

The lantern, of course, was not there.

Nothing at all was behind the sewer gate, which looked like any other dark sewer, except that this gate had an unusual key hole in one side. Mifroid insisted that the lock assists the city in cleaning the drain after unusually rainy seasons. "It would have been too much of a coincidence, Alice, if the ghost's labyrinth led almost to our front door."

She had to admit that her nocturnal escapade now sounded very far-fetched. How could she have successfully broken into the Opera at night and opened all of those puzzling trap doors in one evening? She had nothing at all to prove she had been beneath the opera—at least if she had taken a small item from the ghost's house, she would have _something_ to show that she had been _somewhere_. It was also possible that the Persian had confirmed what she had seen only so that it would merit his own story. Now even she began to think that her adventure had been only a dream.

* * *

Alice needed solitude, so she excused herself that afternoon and stole away to the Church of Saint Louis d'Antin, not far from her Rue Scribe. Her seminary had inculcated a firm faith, and she often came to the d'Antin for reflection. Kneeling alone at last among the silent pews, she hid her face in her hands and finally allowed her emotions to overtake her.

In her mind, she replayed the embarrassing events at the Opera again and again. She had been humiliated in front of the Sûreté while searching in the dirt for her missing trapdoor. She winced as she remembered Moncharmin's scowl. Worse, her father believed that the trapdoor was only a dream, and he had admitted his regret for having trusted that a woman could be taught a man's profession. Thus the commissioner, who had become the joke of the Sûreté, recovered his social repute once he promised the officers that his daughter would be henceforth forbidden from practicing policework. He refused to train her or even to discuss his assignments. Her investigation of the opera ghost was entirely terminated. Captain Lefevre, who had voiced his opinion of the matter while at the Place Denfert-Rochereau, was particularly pleased to be rid of the girl. But it was the loss of her father's favor that staggered her most of all. The look of disappointment on his face earlier that morning still seared her eyes like inescapable smoke.

A sigh escaped her lips as the first hopeless tear trembled along her cheek. Her father had been her shelter from society's critical eye. She had badly wanted to be accepted and to make her father proud. The chance to find the murderer of the hanged man—and solve the mystery of the opera ghost—had been her opportunity. Indeed, she had proven her proficiency when she discovered the name of the murder weapon, starting her investigation with only the rope's material. But her overconfidence had cost her dearly. Consoled by marble effigies of sympathetic saints and illuminated by the tranquil glow of candlelight flickering in sacred votives, she quietly mourned her losses.

As the candles melted and their light slowly dimmed, her thoughts returned to the night of her exploration beneath the trapdoor. Had she only _imagined_ the house beneath the cellars of the Opera? No—she had no doubt that her journey had been real, although it had seemed other-worldly. In particular, entering the organ room had felt like crossing the threshold of Hell. What disturbing inclination would possess a man to live beneath the earth, and with such ghastly décor? Moreover, what had seduced him to create a chamber for torture, and why construct a replica in Paris? The most chilling aspect of the mystery was the genius of the chamber's design, and the technology of the trap doors that had barricaded his lair. Although she was persuaded to agree with the Persian that the man's artistry deserved admiration, but these innovations were beautiful pictures of _death_. What had induced this behavior from a man of such extraordinary intelligence? Alice couldn't leave these questions unanswered.

If she could prove to the commissioner that the oddities beneath the Opera existed, perhaps she could convince him to accept her assistance on the case. But with the disappearance of the trapdoor, she had no access to that underworld in order to get her proof. Was there another way in? She had already tried to break the lock on the Rue Scribe gate. It was like no lock she had ever encountered and was probably made of iron. Could there be another secret entrance inside the Opera? Certainly she would not be welcomed back there, and the managers would never allow her to search for more trapdoors.

_Was there a way through the catacombs?_

Alice swept her gaze around the chapel, having forgotten where she was. The candelabra on the walls cast disturbing shadows on the Grecian pillars behind the altar. She stood and passed her palms over her face like someone awakening from sleep. She realized that she should leave, if she were to return home before sunset. Her mind now alert, she knelt and made the sign of the cross before making her exit at the back of the chapel, her hollow footsteps resounding from the lonely pews.

Outside, the golden afternoon had frosted, and Alice's breath passed from her lips in a ghostly vapor. Wind carried the fallen leaves, which collected in crispy ochre piles on the stone steps of the church. Alice was all but oblivious to the weather and only hugged her arms for warmth as her thoughts returned to the abode of the opera ghost.

She could search the catacombs.

Her unconscious steps took the path homeward while she considered her plan. The catacombs were labyrinthine passages beneath the city, some of which had been filled with the decaying bodies of the dead. Plagues and starvation had engorged Paris' cemeteries before the revolution, and the caverns under the earth had presented an expedient final resting place for the disinterred. According to her father, one of these tunnels took a winding path far underground beneath the Seine, and perhaps from there she could enter the ghost's subterranean lair.

But she risked losing direction underground without tools for her exploration: a compass, and materials to record the paths she took. A lantern to light the perpetual darkness of the grave. Perhaps the Bibliothèque would have copies of the plates that mapped the twisting passages. Lost in thought as she excitedly strategized, Alice was bewildered to find that her feet had already taken her to her front door.


	9. The Kingdom of Death

Chapter 9: The Kingdom of Death

The house was empty one Sunday afternoon, and Alice could finally execute her plan. Her father had paperwork at the prefecture, and her mother was attending an invitation. Only Heloise the housekeeper remained, and she minded no one's business but her own. Alice filled a traveling bag with tools and supplies, and packed flasks of water and tin canisters of bread and cheese, in case she became lost in the catacombs' unfamiliar tunnels and needed the food to survive. When everything was ready, she wrapped herself in a coarse, woolen cloak, took up the traveling bag and a hurricane lamp, and left the house.

She paid a hansom cab to take her a few blocks from the Place Denfert-Rochereau, walking the rest of the way in order to conceal her destination from the driver. At this hour, most people were resting at home, and the weather had turned bitter cold, sending idle ramblers indoors.

The air at the cave-like entrance to the tomb was still, as it had been when she'd arrived with her father the morning after the murder. She could not forget the mysterious singing that had emanated from the crypt, and tilted her head to listen. No sound came from the grave but the gentle pulsing of air, like what one hears when putting one's ear to a conch shell. Glancing over her shoulder to be sure she wasn't seen, she slipped unnoticed into the Kingdom of Death.

First there were an unremarkable set of stairs that took her beneath the city. The icy wind blowing in the street immediately subsided, and the silence of the tomb settled like a thick blanket around her. Her footsteps were the only sound, echoing with a slow rhythm like dripping water as she descended the staircase. The stairs were so dark that she had to light her lamp before even reaching the bottom. At last the steep steps gave way to a long, straight corridor, although Alice couldn't see very far into the darkness ahead of her. Her own heartbeat roared in her ears in the deadly silence. She followed the narrow tunnel for a long time, pausing only to read her compass, which gave her direction as due west. When she reached an intersection, she stopped and set her bag and lantern on the earthen floor to carefully consider her choice. Which path should she take? One plate at the Bibliothèque had shown a narrow tunnel winding from the ossuary due north under the Seine. She again consulted her compass and finally chose a path.

The corridor continued for at least a mile without any intersections, but it did not take a straight path either. When Alice examined her compass again, she was surprised to find that she had been completely turned around from the direction in which she had set out. Should she go back? Where was she?

The General Inspector of Quarries, an administration founded to make sense of this underground maze, had placed plaques at intervals along the walls to provide some direction for the IGC engineers. Alice's eyes traveled slowly along those walls in search of such a marker, and this is how she realized the full horror of _where_ _she_ _was_.

She was in a grave.

What she had presumed to be smooth, round stones protruding from the walls were actually human skulls, set in a mosaic of neatly piled bones—_stacks_ of them, from the floor to the ceiling, and she did not know how far back the masses extended before meeting the true wall of the tomb. Their flesh had long since been eaten by worms, leaving nothing but yellowed bone. The dreadful skeletons lined the sides of the tunnel for as far as she could see in either direction.

The victims of the plague.

Some things are tolerable when by themselves, but inflict upon the mind an extraordinary horror when they appear in hordes. Such was the disturbing effect of these mile-long piles of corpses. Alice Mifroid, who prided herself on her background in human biology, was terribly sickened by the scene. Gradually she became aware of an ancient odor pervading the crypt—the sweet but nauseating smell of festering death. It suffocated her, invading her nostrils like a filthy cockroach.

Stifling the urge to retch, she continued with cautious steps.

"Need directions, Ma'm'sell?" laughed a man's voice from the shadows.

Her fear turned to panic, and she swung the lantern frantically, straining in the darkness to find the source of his drunken laughter. "Who's there?" she called, terrified even more by the uneven waver in her voice echoing in the tomb.

When there was no answer, she lifted the severed Punjab lasso from her bag. It was her only defense; foresight had not inspired her to bring a weapon. Until this critical moment, she had forgotten her father's caution about dangerous "vagabonds" hiding in the catacombs.

Suddenly a ragged beast reached for her from a side passage that she hadn't seen. The man had her in his grasp before her mind even registered the attack, and her bag and lantern were thrown to the floor.

"Aha! What's this?" The man laughed as he brought her closer. His wild eyes were red and watery from intoxication, and the spidery, crimson veins of an alcoholic were spread across his face. His breath stank of liquor and human filth.

Alice struggled not to faint from fear or disgust.

"Oh, what a lovely girl. Are you virginal? Never mind, I'll find out!" He laughed again, gassing poor Alice with his putrid breath.

She fought weakly and managed to free her arm. "Let me go, or I'll… kill you!" she demanded, brandishing the lasso.

It was, of course, a pathetic threat. She didn't know what to do with the small piece of rope besides wave it menacingly over her head like a driver cracking his whip. But the drunkard's eyes grew very wide, and his features contorted in actual terror. He all but dropped her onto the floor and slowly backed away. "You… know _him_!" He turned and fled, running wildly in the opposite direction and shouting madly, "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!"

But Alice heard nothing he said, for as soon as she found herself free from his grip, she seized her belongings and raced down the hallway, away from her captor.

After so many turns and corners among the stacks of mortal remains, she grew tired and slowed her pace, estimating that she had put a considerable distance between herself and her attacker. The hallway behind her was dark and deadly silent.

As she walked, she thought she heard another voice, coming faintly through the walls. Hoping to avoid an encounter like the one she had just experienced, she turned down the flame of her lantern until she hardly saw her own shoes. This way, her light was less noticeable to anyone hiding in the shadows. She continued walking, and the voice became more audible in the encompassing silence. It was only one voice, though—not two—so she wondered to whom the man was speaking—or if this morbid labyrinth would drive her to insanity and _she_ would talk to the dead, too. Far ahead, light spilled out from another hallway. As Alice approached the light, the voice grew more distinct.

It was reciting a Latin prayer.

She peeked into the hallway and was amazed to find—not another tunnel, but a large, circular room. Like the halls, it too was lined with human remains in some strange and ancient pattern. The bones shone eerily bright and white in the lamplight, and when Alice touched the wall experimentally, she found it to be glazed by a calcium fluid oozing from the geological formations above the catacombs. The glaze had hardened and fused the bones together, preserving their horrible shape through the centuries and giving them the appearance of glossy, translucent flesh.

Surrounded by these mummified corpses, a primeval altar stood in the center of the rotunda with a blackened grail perched in its center. Although the only light came from an opulent candelabrum atop the altar, the lustrous walls reflected the light from the flames and created the impression of daylight. Before the altar knelt a Carthusian monk, absorbed in his supplications. He rested his forehead on his clasped hands. The cowl over his head concealed his face from her view.

Alice quietly entered the room and set down her bag and lantern just inside. Not knowing what else to do, she knelt beside her traveling bag behind the monk and folded her hands in prayer, listening to the worshiper's beautiful incantation. The monk reminded her of calm evenings spent in the Church of Saint Louis d'Antin. Perhaps, at last, here was someone who could assist her to find her way safely!

Like a song, the heartfelt prayer lifted the souls of the two worshipers with its magnificent melody. The man's voice articulated the Latin with genuine emotion, sometimes beseeching with thunderous desperation, other times imploring sorrowfully in barely a whisper. His voice sometimes caught in his throat, and he would pause to swallow his tears. After a quarter of an hour, the monk grew quiet and made his last prayer nearly in silence. Although he whispered in French, Alice couldn't hear him well enough to know what he had requested from his Lord. Finally he raised his voice again with a sigh, to utter melodiously "Amen."

Harmonizing her voice with his, she reverently repeated the word.

But it was obvious that, until then, the monk had thought he was alone. With her voice still echoing in the chamber, he leapt in such startled excitement that his hood fell back, and he turned to face his intruder with a dramatic sweep of his robes. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" he snarled.

Alice could not speak, nor even scream, so extreme was her terror. What towered over her was not the gentle and aged countenance of a Carthusian monk. Rather, the beast before her better resembled one of the corpses rotting away in this horrifying tomb! She knew it was impossible, but her eyes did not deceive her: The face held no nose at all, and the eye sockets were as empty and as dark as night. The monk's cowl had fallen to reveal a bald scalp, with only a few locks of black hair shooting out of it like thin, limp strings. It was no trick of the light—the atrium's luminescence obliterated every shadow. The skeleton fisted its bony fingers in fury as Alice backed away, whimpering in fear. Reaching the entrance to the rotunda, she turned and escaped into the hallway from whence she came.

She ran, not knowing where she went, for she had left her traveling bag and lantern in the rotunda. In her haste to get away, she took many twists and turns and entered adjoining corridors when she found them. At last she came to a halt, desperately catching her breath in the crypt's stale air.

When she could think again, she realized the rashness of her flight. How would she find her way out? She would need her bag, especially her lantern. Perhaps the monk has gone, and she could get her things in safety. But which was the way back to the rotunda? She turned around and around. The darkness was now complete; she could not see even her own hands before her face! Panic again gripped her heart—she was lost in a dark grave!

She walked in a random direction, then realized that without a light, she wouldn't be able to find the intersecting passageways. She would have to… how repulsive!… she would have to keep one hand against the walls of bones, and _feel_ them, so she would know when she came to an intersection. "They are just bones, like any that I've seen at the seminary laboratory," she said to calm herself, although this certainly was _not_ like her studies at all. She reached out in the blackness and felt her fingers come in contact with something clammy… and extremely fragile. With extra pressure, the skull she was touching collapsed with a popping sound, and pieces of the remains scattered audibly to the floor. Alice exhaled slowly, waited for her jumping heart to steady itself. She continued walking, with her fingers _lightly_ against the wall of bones. But when our vision is hampered by darkness, the tender fingerpads compensate by magnifying in equal measure the topography we touch. For Alice, it was horrible—a grotesque variety of surfaces. Her fingers lodged in a slippery eye socket, or between some other small, slimy joints, or were scratched by a toothy jaw. Every sickening detail was intensified by her loss of vision. Disgusted by the sensations of death, she could only control her racing heart and continue walking.

At last she thought she found an intersection. She probed with her fingers and found only empty space—no awful skulls or other remains. She stepped into the vacant space, then reached for the wall again to continue her exploration of the new hallway. Her hand brushed against something cold, and she began to walk.

But the bones tightened around her fingers, and more bones grabbed her wrist! Before she could react, they pulled her forwards into the darkness. She had no doubt that the Dead were reaching for her, trying to claim her as one of their own. A scream ripped from her throat as the chill of the skeleton's hands crept up her own arm, freezing her flesh. The hand on her wrist released her and covered her mouth—the fingers smelled of rotting flesh—and the disembodied limbs pulled her towards the wall as she fainted away.


	10. Awakening

_**a/n: I'm back from my hiatus. Thanks for waiting patiently while I was away. I'm still very interested to read your constructive criticism, so please leave a review and let me know what you like or don't like about my writing.**_

Chapter 10: Awakening

Alice opened her eyes, and her surroundings slowly came into focus. She remembered exploring dark, shadowy tunnels… there had been piles of corpses, their bones neatly stacked like ghastly bricks… But now she was someplace else: A familiar musky fragrance, and amber light... The Persian's drawing room materialized from the fuzzy haze of her vision.

"Good evening, Mademoiselle Mifroid," whispered the Persian as he removed a washcloth from her forehead. "You've had a terrible accident on the road. Where were you going, without anyone to escort you?" She stared at him blankly. "Well, you're lucky not to have hurt yourself very badly!" Confused, Alice tried to sit up, but was overcome with lightheadedness by the sudden movement. "Careful now, Mademoiselle. Maybe you'd like a drink of water?" She nodded weakly, and he rose to fill a glass. "Darius has gone to get your family," he called over his shoulder as he left the room. "I'm expecting him any minute."

When he departed for the water, Alice lifted herself to a comfortable sitting position. A coarse blanket lay over her, and she tried to push it aside. Although the blanket was heavy, it slid back enough to uncover a hood sewn into its underside. Along the sides of the blanket were generous sleeves. _This is no blanket_, she realized as her mind regained its sharpness, _it's a cloak!_ Instantly she remembered the robes of the Carthusian monk. He had turned to look at her, and she had seen a horrible face—a death's head, with no nose or eyes, but animated with violent anger—and she knew she had fainted from her terror. But didn't the Persian report that she had met some misfortune in the street?

"Drink this slowly, Mademoiselle," the Persian commanded, returning to her side. He helped her to sit more comfortably before handing her the glass, then quickly removed the cowl to stow it in another room.

Puzzled by the Carthusian robes, she sipped the cold water while she studied the Persian's drawing room. A wooden clock on the mantle read eight o'clock, and because the lamps were lit and darkness hid behind the heavy folds of the curtains, Alice realized that she had awakened late at night.

As her senses returned to her, she began to shiver in the absence of the cowl's warmth. She felt freezing even though she still wore her own woolen cloak. The fireplace was empty of wood, and she stared with distress at the empty hearth. Then something in the ashes caught her eye… a glowing ember? Testing her strength, Alice stood from the settee and went to the hearth with the hopes of coaxing a fire from the last burning cinders. But what she had seen was not a burning piece of ash—she realized it even before she reached the fireplace. It was a speck of gold, buried beneath the refuse, and she dug her fingers into the soft, grey dust to retrieve it. As she did so, though, the fine dust rolled down the slope of the pile and climbed into the air like smoke, unearthing another artifact as well. When she withdrew her hand, she held in her dusty fingers both a gold ring and a large, iron key.

A sudden knock announcing visitors caused Alice to start. Quickly she hid the unusual treasures in the folds of her dress, wiping the ash from her hand onto her already-soiled sleeves.

"Ah, I believe your parents have arrived," the Persian announced as he passed the drawing room on his way to the front door. Surprised to see her standing in the middle of the carpet instead of laying on the settee, he stopped. "And your strength seems to have returned, _Alhamdulillah_." He then opened the front door so hurriedly that his hair lifted in a breeze. "Madame Mifroid! Your daughter is safe. Please come inside. I found her unconscious beside a path by the Tuileries—there had been an accident between her cab and a cart carrying lumber, and the two drivers were busy arguing when I arrived while enjoying my evening walk. I recognized Mademoiselle Mifroid, and since it seemed the two drivers would quarrel all night, I decided to bring her back here and dispatched Darius to get you. She was unconscious then and still doesn't remember what happened. I think she was traveling somewhere, though. Here are her bag and lantern."

At the mention of her belongings, Alice herself looked to where the Persian indicated, at the side of the settee furthest from the fireplace. They were as she remembered them. But hadn't she left them in the rotunda as she ran from the vile monk? Was the Persian's story true, then? If she had indeed received a concussion as the Persian declared, then was her own recollection just a dream begotten by her injuries?

"Dear Alice!" her mother cried upon entering the drawing room. She folded her own coat across the back of the settee then reached to cup Alice's face in her hands. "Where in Heaven's name were you going, without any servant to escort you?"

Alice only stared into her mother's eyes in confusion. What could she say? She didn't know what was happening to her. Her mother cast a glance at the Persian, who understood immediately and withdrew with Darius to allow the two women some privacy.

Madame Mifroid led her daughter to the settee. She examined Alice from head to toe, noting a torn sleeve and scratches on her right hand. "You truly remember nothing?" In answer, Alice shrugged helplessly. "My poor, darling girl," her mother crooned, brushing the loose hairs back from Alice's forehead. She sighed. "Perhaps your father's harsh criticism has affected you, and you thought to run away."

Her mind still preoccupied with the riddle of how she had arrived at the Persian's flat, Alice spoke at last. "Everyone except Papa thought that my interests were improper. But now I've lost his favor, too."

"But you're a grown woman," her mother began slowly. "There comes an age when fathers can't prevent their daughters from pursuing their passions. Dear Alice, your life belongs to you now. Your beautiful mind doesn't need a man's approval."

It was hardly the response one would expect from a mother who suspected that her unmarried daughter had tried to run away. Alice was now so confused by what had transpired and still embarrassed by her trapdoor experience that she was utterly unsure of herself.

"What am I to do?"

"When you longed to travel and study science, it was only possible for you by leaving us for America. I think your pursuits now require that you live independently. Otherwise you'll find yourself too often forced into the tender roles that you've outgrown." Her mother smiled, and Alice felt her own lips curl in response. "I'll talk to your father when he returns from his work later tonight, and we'll see what can be done."

* * *

Within a week, Madame Mifroid had found an ideal arrangement: An aging Russian intellectual had an extra room for which he sought a live-in attendant. He would prove to be an invaluable tutor. Dr. Mechnikov was a robust but elderly man with thin, grey hair and a full beard. A celebrated scientist and appointee of the newly-founded _Institut Pasteur_, he was a living authority on microbiology. He also propounded a strange, new science that he called "thanatology." As its name suggested, the new discipline represented a holistic study of _death_.

"For almost twenty years, my life has been preoccupied with the study of disease and an obsession with prolonging life," he confessed to her as he led her into his flat. "The unfortunate truth is that death has no cure. We will all die, eventually. It is something we must accept. Yet there is very little scholarship on _that_ matter."

He opened a heavy set of double doors and swept his arm across the threshold of his impressive library. What had once been the ballroom of the lucky landlord had been transformed into a vast space lined with shelves. In the center of the room were a desk, two floor lamps, and comfortable leather chairs.

The room was deadly silent, and Mechnikov's thickly-accented French echoed thunderously. "My library, Mademoiselle. It requires very little maintenance. Perhaps a weekly dusting and brooming will suffice. You're welcome, of course, to read anything you like. Be sure to return the volume to the exact shelf where you found it."

He lead her back into the hall and secured the double doors. "But to continue with what I was saying: Many of us fear death, despite its inevitability. For some, it's an inescapable fixation. The American author Edgar Allen Poe, for example, was terrified that he could be buried alive. His writing focused on death as a way to safely scrutinize his phobia."

Alice shuddered, remembering the morbid organ room in the house beneath the Opera. The polished coffin had sat in the middle of the room under a blood red curtain, as if on center stage. It had seemed a testament to the owner's suicidal desire. If indeed the room and its disquieting coffin had not been a dream, could it have been like Poe's stories—an innocent means of embracing the unknown? And the torture chamber… might it, too, have been a monument to some agonizing obsession?

Mechnikov led her further down the hall as he continued, "What does it feel like to die, and what happens afterwards? Is death the beginning or the end? Do we sleep, or is it like awakening? All we have in answer to these questions are legends, myths, and religion. What's more important than their accuracy is how these answers affect dying individuals. A positive characterization of death, for example, does not inspire fear. In fact, some might see death as more desirable than life. I believe that these predispositions determine an individual's susceptibility to an untimely death.

"You see, Mademoiselle, even without actually committing suicide, we control our own mortality. Our will to live, such as it is, influences our biological processes. Men and women really do die from fright… and from a broken heart."

At the end of the corridor he opened an unassuming, austere door. "My laboratory," he announced with understandable pride.

Alice's eyes sparkled as she took in the room. Lined up along a workbench like dutiful soldiers were the most modern instruments of microbiological research: an assembly of microscopes, retorts, Petri dishes, a Bunsen burner, and even an incubator. Illustrations of the systems of the human body hung from the walls. Tucked conveniently in one corner, an additional bookshelf with glass doors offered reference books close at hand. Wafting in the industrial space was a peculiar odor, like seared rubber or an exposed electrical current. After her confusion of the past few weeks, Alice was relieved to find herself in her element once again.

Mechnikov returned her wide smile. "Of course, the laboratory will require more frequent cleaning than the other rooms. I trust you're familiar with the maintenance of this equipment; your mother related to me a most impressive _curriculum vitae_. I am currently examining the effects of various chemicals on waterborn bacteria. My next experiment is tomorrow morning at ten o'clock, and I will need everything in order before my assistants arrive. Of course, you are most welcome to observe the experiment. Now allow me to show you the rest of my humble apartment, and then we shall retire."

So saying, he opened various doors along the halls: this room a bath, another his bedroom, a kitchen, and a tiny room for Alice. Although smaller and much less luxurious than her room on the Rue Scribe, her new chamber resembled the cozy dormitory at the Massachusetts seminary, and was equally practical.

"And now, Mademoiselle, you may unpack your bags into that chest of drawers and rest. My cook arrives at seven to begin breakfast. You will find me to be an early riser. Oh, and lest I forget—here is a set of keys for all the locks in my apartment. They open the front door, some cabinets in the laboratory…. if it has a lock, you have the key. Good night, Mademoiselle."

Alone, Alice took a seat in a small armless chair by the window. She held the ring of keys under the candlelight, and they flashed gold and silver. One key was very tiny—it must be the one for the cabinet in the laboratory. She would have to try the others before she knew which opened what. With a tired sigh, she placed them on her dresser, then emptied her pockets onto the dresser as well. She pulled a sleeping gown from her traveling bag to prepare for bed.

As she filled the drawers with her things, her tired eyes came to rest on the top of the dresser. From her pockets she had taken a handkerchief and the gold ring and iron key from the Persian's fireplace. The iron key rested like a black talisman beside the sparkling new keys from Dr. Mechnikov.

_If it has a lock, you have the key…._

What lock would yield to this mysterious iron key?

Alice lifted its heavy weight and ran her fingertips over its rather simple, angular teeth. There were three: the first tooth poked straight out and took a right angle back towards the handle, the second one was simply straight, and the third was a mirror image of the first. _Like some primeval_ _device_, she mused. Its size was similar to that of keys used to open mausoleums in the cemetery. But why had the Persian dumped it into the fire?

What had he been trying to hide?


	11. Should we pity him? Should we curse him?

Chapter 11: "Should we pity him? Should we curse him?"

The chorus master sighed and shook his head at the new lead soprano. "The key is _C minor_! You're missing the high notes. Try again, Madame!"

"I'm sorry, Monsieur! The Ghost has cursed my voice!"

Gasps filled the empty theater.

The chorus master tugged on the tails of his jacket. Had the room suddenly grown colder? "And how do you know that the _Ghost_ has done this, Madame?"

The poor woman had barely begun her new position as lead soprano. As an understudy, she had already trained her voice to the Opera's standards, but when the Garnier's most popular scandal ended with the disappearance of Christine Daaé, it seemed that not even the singers were much interested in opera anymore. Lately, rehearsals were as unproductive as this one had been.

"I know because these last two days, I have felt unusual pains here—" she placed both her hands over her diaphragm—"And it aches only when I am in _this room_, where the Ghost revealed his most formidable powers!"

The chorus girls behind her began to whisper. Many professed the same strange allergy.

The chorus master loosened his collar and cravat, then swabbed his brow with his handkerchief. "Stage fright, perhaps?"

The lead violinist leaned forward in his seat, his eyes feral. "Maestro," he whispered to the conductor, "I received a most distressing omen this morning: I discovered a dead rat in my violin case. But there was no rat in there when I locked it last night. Who but the Ghost could have put it inside while the box was locked?"

The theater echoed from a sudden commotion as every musician stood and looked in his case beneath his seat to see if he had also received such an offering from the Ghost.

The disturbance in the theater soon attracted Richard's attention. He flung open the great doors at the back of the theater and marched to the stage. "What in God's great name is happening?"

The maestro turned to Richard and replied, "The Ghost!"

Richard stepped back, an angry flush erupting over his face. "Every week since Christine Daaé left, you've used the same excuse! Can't the Paris Opera perform opera anymore?"

"Monsieur, the Ghost is angry with us!" the lead soprano declared.

"When has he _not_ been angry?" Richard was so angry himself that his entire body was shaking. He pointed a threatening finger at the maestro and then at the chorus master. "Perform the opera!" he roared, "No more excuses!"

* * *

While Richard raged in the theater upstairs, the Persian treaded to Christine Daaé's old dressing room. He wanted to pay Erik a visit—if indeed the monster still lived beneath the Opera. The Persian worried endlessly what would happen when Erik realized that Christine wasn't returning as she had promised. Another encounter at his apartment had increased his concern:

He had hardly known what to do when his servant had answered an impatient knock at their apartment door early one evening, and Erik, wearing the robes of a Carthusian, had all but collapsed into the room carrying the fainted Alice Mifroid, a large traveling bag, and a hurricane lantern. The Persian could only rise from his seat and stare opened-mouthed like a fish.

Erik gently laid the unconscious girl on the settee then turned to glare at the Persian. "What did you tell her, Daroga, to incite her to explore the catacombs?" he roared.

At this accusation, the Persian found his voice. "The catacombs? _Ya Allah_! What was she doing there? Is she all right?"

"In the catacombs…" Erik repeated, setting the traveling bag and lantern on the floor as he spoke. "I thought perhaps you had told her that I might be found there."

"Are you mad? Why would I send a woman alone into the catacombs on the other side of Paris?"

Erik made no reply, but returned his attention to the woman on the settee. Her skin had such a deathly pallor that but for the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest he would have feared her dead.

"What could she have been doing there, besides looking for me?" he wondered aloud.

The Persian was examining Alice as well. Mud soiled her conventional indigo dress, and one sleeve was torn. The delicate fingers of her right hand were marred by small cuts that stood bright red against her pallid complexion.

"Is _this_ how you procured your vengeance?" he demanded through his teeth. "What did you do to her?"

"_I_? I didn't know she was there. I heard a noise and turned….She saw this—" he raised his hand and gestured with spread fingers to his hidden face—"I wasn't wearing my mask. My face… I frightened her…" He paused for a moment as his voice caught in his throat.

His last words had been spoken with such unwarranted shame that the Persian felt his frustration melt with his heart.

The Phantom resumed his narrative as he unfastened the Carthusian robes. "She ran from me, and I feared that she would be lost, or injured—the dregs of society live in those tunnels—but it was dark, and when I took her hand to lead her outside, she screamed and tried to run from me… and fainted away… Here," he spread the robe over the unconscious lady like a matador flourishing his cape. "Keep her warm, Daroga."

The Persian watched as Erik bent and carefully wrapped his cloak around Alice before returning to his full height. Each movement was executed with regal poise; nothing in his behavior betrayed the depression that had possessed him when the Persian pulled him from the river, or the inebriation that had terrified the Persian during Erik's last visit. Now dressed in a debonair swallowtail suit and hidden behind a silk opera mask, Erik was almost majestic.

But the Persian knew that Erik's thoughts were still consumed by his own ugliness. His face cursed him to a lifetime of events like the one he had just recounted. Not even the charming Mademoiselle Daaé had shown compassion for his unlucky fate—her recent letter proved her infidelity. The Persian peeked at the fireplace, where the key and ring were buried beneath the ashes. He wished to God that good fortune would smile on his friend, so that the Phantom would never learn the truth of what his beloved soprano had done to him.

Oblivious to the Persian's musings, Erik stared at Alice. "She should have quit after I hid the trap door. Why did she persist?" he wondered aloud. "I don't know whether to call it courage or foolishness to dive into the catacombs the way she did."

"Perseverance, Erik," the Persian responded. "It doesn't seem to be in her nature to give up. It's an admirable quality." He had meant to imply that his friend should fight his feelings for Christine Daaé.

"You shouldn't influence her. For her sake, keep her away from me and don't arouse her curiosity with your stories!"

The Persian shook his head. "I haven't talked to her since the night you appeared in my drawing room. If she was brave enough to venture alone into the catacombs, there is very little you can do to stop her."

Erik sighed and pushed his fingers through his sparse hair. He closed his golden eyes while his mind worked at a solution.

The Persian groaned. "Go, Erik. I'll contrive some story so she'll forget she saw you. With any luck, she will leave you alone. But don't draw attention to yourself again."

The Phantom turned from the settee. "A wise decision. Erik must not be disturbed when Christine returns. I'm planning a spectacular welcome for her. To her, it will be like a magnificent dream. And I'll sing for her, too. She always did like my voice, even if my face repulsed her. I'll wait for her forever—I'll _persevere_ for her!" Chattering to himself like this, he turned and left the apartment.

* * *

The monster had kindly returned the Persian's pistol during his earlier visit, but now had left behind the Carthusian robes. Bringing the robes to the Opera was a fitting way for the Persian to return the favor, and it would also provide the pretext he needed in order to check his friend's condition.

In the dressing room, the Persian stared at his reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall. His memory of their recent conversation made him hesitate—Erik was expecting Christine with so much hope, that if another should come in her place, it would cause a terrible disaster! And he hadn't forgotten that Erik knew the caliber of his pistol—Erik was an excellent marksman. If he found the second pistol, Heaven knew how he might use it. Perhaps the visit could wait.

The Persian left the Carthusian cloak in an empty wardrobe, where he knew the Opera Ghost would find it and discern that a friend from above was concerned for him. Then he slipped into the hallway and climbed the stairs to the Opera lobby.

When he reached the doors leading to the Boulevard des Capucines, however, he was nearly flattened as the doors were pushed open and an old woman who looked like a crow marched into the lobby. Her thin lips were set in a solid, straight line, and what was left of her eyebrows alternated between rising high in dignified surprise and drawing together in raging anger. She had a grandiose feather stuck straight in her hat. The Persian recognized Madame Giry, the keeper for Erik's box five. In her extreme anger she hadn't noticed him, however, and he followed her to discover what the matter was.

She stormed into the manager's office with the same force with which she had entered the Opera itself, waving a letter she had received. "I demand an explanation! When the Opera Ghost learns that you plan to rent his box, and that I must serve _someone else_, he will be furious!"

"Calm yourself, Madame," warned Richard. He had just returned from his battle with the maestro and the chorus master, and his patience was wearing thin.

"We are doing this at the Ghost's request," Moncharmin explained.

"I don't believe it!"

"Neither did we, at first. See, here is the letter that was given to us." Moncharmin handed her the Ghost's letter that had mysteriously appeared in box five.

Mme. Giry snatched the paper and read it with narrowed eyes. Her rigid pose seemed to slowly collapse, and the feather in her hat slumped forward in resignation.

"How can this be?" she cried as she nearly threw the letter back at Moncharmin. "What did I do to upset the Ghost?"

Both managers looked at her in surprise. The recovery of First-Tier Box Five had been cause for celebration for them, yet this woman seemed in mourning.

Suddenly her eyes grew very wide. "The Ghost is angry with us for talking to the police! They came last week and asked me about the box! The Ghost believes we betrayed him!"

Richard cleared his throat and shared an uncomfortable look with Moncharmin.

Mme. Giry continued, oblivious to their reaction, "You've said that the Opera's standards are waning. It's the Ghost's curse! He is furious! We must make amends."

Richard rolled his eyes, "And how do we reconcile with the Opera Ghost, Madame?"

The matron frowned in thought. "We must ask the Ghost ourselves. We must summon him with a séance!"

Both managers spoke at once: "A séance, Madame?" "And how do you suggest we conduct such a ritual?"

"Place a belonging of his on a large table," She nodded to herself, the hat-feather bobbing in the air with regained confidence. "We will summon him through his possessions. The table must be large, as I said, and covered in black velvet. It must be done at night."

Moncharmin smiled. "Richard! If we can summon the ghost, we might find a way to get rid of him. If he _is_ a real ghost, he might tell us his story, which could provide some clue as to how we can release him from his ghostly existence. If he's a fake, we can catch him—we'll invite the most learned scientists in Paris to this séance, and see if they can explain what goes on here!"

"Yes, yes!" Richard agreed. "And maybe, once caught, this ghost will offer some advice for our chorus in exchange for his freedom!"

The Persian, with his ear to the wall, listened as the men made their plan. He, too, planned to attend the ritual in order to protect Erik's privacy. He could gain admission by offering himself as one having knowledge of the dark arts. His mysterious reputation would finally prove to be useful.


	12. Alice Opens the Gate

**_a/n: In the spirit of the US election season, I've created a poll about your favorite chapter of the story. Please visit my profile to cast your vote!_**

Chapter 12: Alice Opens the Gate

Midmorning one Wednesday, Alice slipped away to the Rue Scribe gate. As she turned from the Rue Auber into her narrow street, the autumnal winds loosened her chignon, and she could not escape the foreboding sense of dread that hung around her like a heavy fog. The Rue Scribe was quiet, and fragile leaves whispered as they chased each other in circles across the street. Leaded clouds cast strange shadows and painted the empty street a lusterless, ashen grey.

She had at last deduced that the iron key from the Persian's fireplace fit the strange lock on the Rue Scribe. As she assisted Dr. Mechnikov, she had found herself repeatedly pondering whether her journey beneath the Opera had been merely imagined. But then, she thought, the Persian had confirmed her account of what lay beneath the set piece of _Le Roi de Lahore_. She began to suspect that her explorations had not been dreams after all. Given the Persian's link to the Opera Ghost, and the similar structure in the unusual key found in his apartment and the strange lock on the Rue Scribe gate, she soon questioned whether the key and lock were not a match.

Then, during one of Mechnikov's experiments "concerning the effects of certain chemicals on water-born bacteria," her suspicions were confirmed. Mechnikov had expressed his intention to purify the gutters of Paris with the chemicals, to increase the city's supply of clean drinking water. Peering into a microscope to observe a dying bacterium, Alice had suggested that he ask the municipality for access into the locked gates for the purification. He had looked up from his notes and had said most singularly, "There are no locked drains in Paris. They are all easily opened. From where else would I have obtained my samples?" There could be no doubt, then, that the lock on the Rue Scribe gate had an altogether different purpose than the one her father had offered. She had not only _imagined_ a house with a lake beneath the Opera. Now she had come to the gate itself to test her suspicions.

In her hands, she held the instrument that would unlock the Phantom's kingdom. She held her breath and pushed the heavy key into the lock.

Iron scraped against iron in the quiet morning and echoed in the tunnels below—the key fit! That grating sound, ordinarily unpleasant, was music to the ears of Alice Mifroid just then. It meant that she had not imagined her escapade in the Opera's cellars. It meant that the rebuke that she had received from the Commissioner had been unjust! Now she would redeem herself!

She wrapped her fingers around the key and turned it in the lock. At last she felt the catch give way, and heard a rumble from deep inside like a waking dragon. She swung the gate open easily into the street and retrieved the key, then stepped inside and drew the gate shut behind her. The smell of sulfur flooded the narrow tunnel as she struck a match and lit the small lamp she carried. Pocketing the key and guarding the lamp against the wind straining through the gate, she took the steps down to the lake.

As she descended, a warm, flickering light came into view ahead of her. She rounded the corner and was suddenly blinded by an amazing light, as if she had stepped into dazzling summer sunlight. She shielded her eyes while they adjusted, and squinted into the brightness.

_Incredible!_

A tier of fire snaked along the walls of the massive cavern! It encircled the lake all the way to the house, and the towering flames leapt like dancing devils.

Alice remembered the sound she had heard when unlocking the gate, and speculated that turning the lock had triggered some apparatus to ignite drums of oil around the cavern walls. The same twisted ingenuity that had created a beautiful torture chamber beneath the Opera had now transformed the surreal lake into the depths of an inferno. She had not forgotten that the house by the lake belonged to a killer, but she was so eager for her proof and so amazed by the fire that she shaded her lamp and stepped into the boat.

As she crossed the lake, the ripples glittered in the flickering light as if she traversed a current of flowing lava within an angry volcano. When she reached the middle of the quiet lake, the blazing cavern suddenly erupted into song. A tranquil melody floated in the air and drifted across the glowing water:

"When one loves, he becomes mild.  
I myself, I myself tremble more than you.  
Why do you fear this shy servant,  
who is beneath your reign?"

Those velvet verses from the opera _Zémire et Azor_ spoke of tenderness, but the one who sang lent a voice of irresistible power. The _world_ trembled with the plaintive tenor, whose soaring timber seized Alice's heart. Despite the fire surrounding her, and although she knew she headed towards the house of a murderer, she felt her heart relax of its own accord, tempted by the gentle music. Drawn by that hypnotic voice, Alice searched for its source in the shadows of the cavern. The frantic flames around the lake drove away the darkness, yet she could not find the one who sang.

Wait… There on the bank, by the house!

He stood dressed in evening clothes, with his back supported by the stone wall of the apartment, his long legs crossed at the ankles. From his shoulders hung a black cape with satin lining of pale ivory, and his hands were hidden by white kid gloves. A black opera mask, as smooth as silk, covered his face. The man looked to be the Prince Azor himself, in handsome human form! He sang to the stars, facing the heavens and clutching his breast with both hands as he poured forth the intoxicating pleasure of his voice.

"And I my-self," he cried, holding and embellishing the notes, "Yes, I myy….—"

He straightened so quickly and ended so abruptly that Alice jerked, nearly tipping over the boat.

"How did _you_ get in here?"

The spell broken, Alice found herself sitting in the boat at the dock beside the house. The current must have taken her as the music drifted around her like a beautiful perfume. In front of her, the tenor had realized that he sang for someone unintended. His expression had transformed as rapidly as his music had ended, and he now bore a threatening scowl beneath his mask. He reached her in four quick steps, the gravel grinding under his shoes.

"I'll ask you _again_, and I have little patience. How did you get in here?"

Though his voice now had an angry edge, Alice could still hear the smooth cadence beneath it. He made no move to assist her out of the boat, so she stayed where she was. She had realized with alarming certainty this was the killer she had been chasing, the Erik of the Persian's warnings—and that her life was in danger.

Like two deep, empty chasms leading down into his malevolent soul, his dangerous eyes contained a pit of fire more terrible than the one surrounding the cavern! Yes!—His eyes burned like the Devil's! And the ring of flames that reflected in his horrible mask gave the appearance that his entire head was aflame. She was terrified—Alice Mifroid, brave daughter of the Police Commissioner of the Sûreté, was absolutely terrified!

She screamed, aware of her fate and of the futility of the call, but nevertheless unable to control the expression of horror boiling from her throat.

The man grabbed her wrist, causing her fist to open, and the key fell on the dock at his feet with a heavy thud. With her wrist still shackled in his cold fingers, he stared down at that archaic instrument for several moments, and then his terrible eyes fell on her. His grasp around her wrist grew impossibly tighter, drawing her nearer to him and all but dragging her up out of the boat.

"Where did you get this?" he hissed, his lips mere inches from her ear.

She bit her own lip to contain another scream. "I found it in the Persian's fireplace."

Her words broke the floodgates of his mercurial temper, and he struck her with the back of his hand. "You lie!" he cried, and these two words echoed tremendously in the cavern.

The blow had nearly sent poor Alice off the side of the boat, which set to rocking back and forth as she touched the tender flesh of her cheek where he'd struck her. "It's the truth, Monsieur!" She would not let a criminal accuse _her_ of vice! "Look, I found a ring there, too. How else would I have gotten it? If it's yours, take it!" She all but threw it at him, to be rid of it.

The formidable Architect of Mazenderan released her wrist and held the gold ring between his thumb and forefinger. He studied it for a full minute against the light of the incredible fire. The ring's design was simple: only a bit of embellishment in the form of ribbing along the top and bottom edges. Yet he recognized the ring, indeed. His anger temporarily subdued, he collected the ring and key into the pocket of his waistcoat, then returned a steady stare at the woman in the boat.

"Didn't you know," he growled, "that I gave this ring to Christine Daaé, who was to return?"

Confused, Alice shook her head.

"It was not for you." Threats laced his words, the way that poison laces the assassin's drink. "Then how, you might ask, did they come to the Persian? An interesting question isn't it?" he inquired with a maddening nod of his head. He grabbed her by the arm again, this time pulling her out of the boat and into the house, his cape a swirling tempest behind him. Alice was now far too frightened to scream.

"Of course, _she_ gave them to him," he said as he dragged her into his drawing room. His cold, bony fingers dug into her flesh from the strength of his grip—from the force of his rage. "She must have sent them to him because she didn't want to visit Erik herself! Not even if Erik were dead! Of course, it might be that she herself is dead, but then he would have told me, wouldn't he? There wouldn't be anything to hide then!"

Rambling on in this manner and still manacling her arm, he swung open the pendulum chamber of the grandfather clock and tore out the bottom of the chamber. Beneath it was a secret compartment, from which he removed a terrifying, white pistol. Alice found her voice and screamed again.

"Scream!" he laughed as he cocked the pistol, "No one can hear you in this Hell!" He surprised her then by pointing the weapon to his own skull.

Her scream died to a frightened sob. With her free hand, she struggled to pry open his grip on her arm.

"Do you know differently, about Christine?" he begged as he pulled her closer. His hands shook so terribly that the pistol shuddered in his hold. "Tell me why she won't return!"

"Please, Monsieur, put that away," Alice pleaded, trembling herself.

"You have nothing to fear. Only _answer_ me!"

His voice broke, and she knew he was crying, although the mask hid his face. He released her arm to cover his eyes, then fell to his knees.

"She doesn't love me!" he gasped. "Oh, God! Just answer me!"

Alice didn't know what to do. Only moments before, she thought he would destroy her. Now the murderer she had been seeking wept at her feet, mourning his lost love! And he had released her arm, so she was free… but—

She knelt in front of him and reached for the weapon, her voice still wavering. "Monsieur, you must listen! I don't know Mlle. Daaé, and I don't know her reasons. Please, put this pistol away!"

"You too have seen my face, that horrible vision that I have no doubt still haunts your dreams. What other reason could there be for her to refuse to honor her promise?"

Alice wrapped her fingers around the barrel of the gun and struggled to pull it away from him. "No, I've never seen you before, Monsieur."

"You have! We met in the catacombs one Sunday, when you interrupted my devotions!"

Alice nearly released her hold on the pistol, she was so surprised. The Persian had lied—she really _did_ explore the catacombs! And the image that had terrified her into a helpless faint…

"Ah!" he cried, noticing the change in her expression, "Yes! Now you know! Now you understand why she didn't return!"

"Monsieur, listen!" She redoubled her efforts, grabbing the gun with both hands and shoving her thumb behind the trigger of the pistol to prevent it from firing. "Monsieur Erik! You murdered men in cold blood! Could it be your _character_ that turned her away?"

He pushed her away with his free hand with such force that she fell backwards onto the floor. "And _you_ are entirely innocent?" he cried, rising to tower over her. "Stealing what isn't yours, and trespassing on others' property! It looks different from your point of view, I'm sure," he added when she shook her head as she struggled to her feet and reached again for the pistol. "Foolish woman! As a matter of convenience we all forget the laws of God and man, when they obstruct our endeavors. You think that I don't know what I am? I've had this curse since birth—a _mask_ since my two demon-eyes first saw the world—loneliness from the very beginning of my life! From my first moments in this world, people assumed—A monster like me must also have the soul of one—I was accused even before I had done anything. Then they came for me…. They wouldn't leave me be—I had to _silence_ them all! Then I became the monster they had believed me to be. So you see, _Mademoiselle_, even if it is my _character_ that has repulsed her, it was still because of my damned ugliness!"

"Monsieur," she pleaded, releasing the weapon and folding her hands in supplication, "I'm begging you not to kill yourself. Whatever your appearance, whatever sins you've committed, you've still a _soul!"_

The Phantom stared at her. Why did she insist on sparing his life? An ordinary person would have allowed him to be done with it. Hadn't she been hounding him because of his murders, and wouldn't the punishment be death in any case? Yet this tender creature wanted him still to live _because he had a soul_.

_But was that soul worth saving?_

His pause betrayed his doubt, and she could read the remorse in his sorrowful eyes behind the mask. Though he made his ugliness an excuse for his crimes, but his own guilt tortured him more painfully than even his appearance.

She then took hold of _his own hand_ that gripped the pistol. "A wicked heart could not have borne the love that you have for Mlle. Daaé. Since the murder at the Place Denfert-Rochereau, and as I've followed the case, I was curious to learn what caused you to kill. Evil would be the man who had everything, yet still killed for the pleasure. But you carry a heavy burden."

He had been surprised to feel her fingers moving gently over his own, but he was absolutely stunned to hear such a generous reading of his own heart by a stranger. He lowered the pistol.

"It was for some form of salvation that I prayed on that day we met in the catacombs," he whispered. "In the chalice on the altar, there was poison that would have ended my life. Something in your determination that afternoon revived my will to live." He dropped the pistol. "I had hoped that she would return to me, but now that my only hope is gone for certain, this life holds nothing for me but incredible pain: '_The agonies which __are__ have their origin in the ecstasies which __might have been_.'"

He moaned in profound sorrow, and Alice was touched by the _beauty_ of the sound. The world should know this genius, and appreciate his art!—but how?

"What if the face you hide could be transformed?" Alice was as surprised as he was to hear what she had said.


	13. On Science

Chapter 13: On Science

His golden eyes grew wide as he considered her suggestion. His two hands rose to touch the edges of his mask. Change his face? No soul had ever forwarded such a proposal, and he had never dared to hope for it! Wasn't that only possible in his best of dreams?

Indeed, even in his best of dreams, he had accepted the permanency of his hideous fate. God Himself had created this monster; how could mortal hands ever alter His will? And yet the suggestion rang pleasantly in Erik's mind. Could he really live as other men?

But what if her plan failed? Erik had already exhausted himself sustaining his hopes that Christine would return. His heart might not survive another exercise of faith!

He shook his head to clear his crowding thoughts.

"It could be from a disease. I—I've studied microbiology," Alice explained. "I can't say for certain, but maybe something can be done for you."

"No!" he snapped as he turned and sank into a worn chair. "Nothing can be done."

Alice watched him prop an elbow on the armrest and cover his masked eyes with his hand. She hadn't been thinking when she had suddenly offered to reverse his ugliness. In fact, she still was not sure why she hadn't run as soon as he had released her wrist. Perhaps it was the pain she had heard in his sublime voice when he had realized that his love would never be returned. Alice herself understood the feeling, the powerful yearning not only to be loved, but to have one's own love be treasured. Anyone with this desire must himself be capable of great love, to expect it from another. A heart that held such benign feelings did not deserve such sadness.

She followed the Phantom to his seat. "Let me see your face again, to know if I can help."

"What?" he cried, raising his head from his hand. "Erik shows his face to no one! You were not _invited_ here! Leave me!"

"Monsieur Erik, there are diseases that attack the flesh, and although there is scarring, much of the cosmetic damage can be reversed with treatment."

"You came here to prosecute me!"

"But that was before I understood your condition and your love for Mlle. Daaé."

He coughed, struggling to stifle the grief that stung his eyes. "No handsome face will bring her back—not now."

"You don't have to live like this!"

He sighed. Her compassion made it difficult to refuse her request. "You forget your own reaction to the horror behind my mask."

"I'm prepared this time. I know what to expect."

He now knew better than to fight her tenacity. "If you run or faint this time, I'll throw you into the lake for the Siren to feed!" With this acid warning, he reached behind his head and loosened the chords of his black mask. Then he placed his trembling hands on either side of the mask and removed it ever so slowly, as if his apprehension had turned him into stone. When it was finished, when his face was entirely naked before her, he raised his eyes to her own.

She knelt in front of him as a wrinkle of concentration spread across her brow. A candelabrum burned on a table nearby, and she pulled it closer to increase the light. Her eyes wandered over his death's head while her mind sifted through the register of her knowledge. She stared at his mouth until she had memorized the thin, black lines of his cadaver's lips, and then focused on the absence of his nose.

As when she had examined the victim's corpse while at her father's side, her objective expertise did not eclipse her sympathetic heart. Unafraid while taking in every detail of his hideousness, she understood what the Persian had meant when he had warned her of the sad chapter in the Ghost's story, the "tears of human sorrow." Not only were some facial features disturbingly absent, but those that remained were thin and hollow, like the twisted face of a corpse sunken by the heavy weight of Time. His appearance conveyed his loneliness as clearly as if he had said the word with his own elegant voice.

The experience was quite different for her subject. This was not a laboratory sample but a living human being—one who had never been the focus of such scrutinizing examination before. Hardly noticing his increasing embarrassment, she turned her attention to his withered earlobes, then looked into his cavernous eyes. A strand of his hair had tumbled over his forehead as he'd removed his mask, and she calmly brushed it aside. He, however, was unable to control the shiver that climbed the back of his neck as her finger slid across his brow. He closed his eyes.

The movement alerted her to his discomfort, so she stood and redirected her gaze to the grandfather clock. He took the opportunity to replace his mask.

"I've never seen such an affliction, Monsieur," she said at last, breaking the awkward silence. "It doesn't correspond to any malady or chemical damage that I know. I could research, but I might not find anything. If I do learn something, how can I contact you?"

He stared at her, the ticking of the grandfather clock the only sound. At last he rose from his chair and dumped the pistol into its secret chamber. He then reached into his waistcoat pocket and pushed something into her hand. Alice felt the cold iron of the key in her palm. He closed her fingers tightly, as if he feared that he would change his mind and take back the gift.

"I have faith in your _abilities_," he hissed, "but I'm distrustful of my fate. If you betray me, Mademoiselle—if you've falsely aroused what passes in my heart for hope, Heaven would never forgive you for the despair you would cause."

She shook her head. "Monsieur Erik, I might not find a cure—"

"I understand! All too well I understand. But why you should offer me your talents is still beyond my comprehension. I rather suspect some ruse to make your escape."

He lifted her chin with his gloved hand. The low candlelight cast a golden hue over her aquiline features, and her green eyes seemed to glow in the shadows.

"No," he sighed, "I can see that you are earnest." He walked towards the lake and lifted a top hat off of a hook by the door. "Come, Mademoiselle, I'll take you across Lake Averne to your home on the Rue Scribe."

She stiffened. "You know where I live?"

He laughed, an indescribably delicious sound that echoed through his modest house and melted her apprehensions like a spell. His voice was still dark with depression, and his mirth was colored with it like a black brocade; the decadent laughter rose like a crescendo and faded again all too soon. "Commissioner Mifroid is one of my more vexing opponents. I long ago thought it useful to discover where he lived." He covered his head with the hat and opened the door to the lake. "Don't worry—I have no intention of harming him."

"I left weeks ago."

"Indeed?"

"I'm studying under an elderly biologist, on the Rue M_."

Erik was silent for several minutes. She trusted him immensely, to reveal such information. At last he replied: "Then we would do better to take you to the Boulevard Haussmann, where you can get a cab discreetly. Follow me closely, and keep quiet!"

He took her onto the shore of his lake, and then to the left along the water's edge. Their footsteps were the only sound as they skirted the shore.

Erik stopped and turned to her. "It won't do, Mademoiselle. I see perfectly in the dark, and would know my way even if I couldn't see. But you wouldn't fair as well as I. Wait here, I think you left a lantern in my boat, didn't you?" Without waiting for an answer, he walked past her back to the dock and retrieved her lamp. He returned to her side and handed her the light. "You need it, Mademoiselle, not I."

She followed him into a dark corridor that she hadn't seen before. The ground beneath her feet was firm and paved with stone, and the air felt close. The hallway continued along the side of his apartment and ended at an iron corkscrew staircase that lead nowhere but to the ceiling. Erik had turned to Alice and was entertained by the confusion written on her face. He took the stairs with long strides—two stairs at a time—and stopped before his hat hit the ceiling. With his eyes still on her, he reached up and slightly to the right, touching a panel or pin that she could not see and causing a piece of the ceiling above the stairs to slide away.

Alice could not suppress her astonishment.

He led her up the stairs, which had her spinning up and up until she felt faint. At last they seemed to reach the top, and he signaled for her to wait. The walls had grown impossibly close, and the staircase itself had so narrowed that Alice had taken the last two turns sideways. The Phantom removed his top hat and placed his ear to one of the walls, listening.

"It seems practice has ended early again," he observed as he replaced his top hat. He pulled a lever on the banister of the iron staircase, and a piece of the wall beside them disappeared. She glanced through the wall after him: they were in Box Five.

They took a back staircase, keeping to the shadows. They saw no one. After passing through some rooms backstage, they reached the Haussmann exit. Erik pulled the brim of his hat low over his forehead, shrouding his masked face in its shadows as they stepped out of the Opera. He raised his hand for a cab and silently passed some francs to the driver who stopped. Without a word, he turned and disappeared into the shadows of the Garnier, leaving Alice to give her address to the driver.

* * *

She arrived at Dr. Mechnikov's residence with her mind preoccupied. She was trying to think of a way to request the microbiologist's help in reversing Erik's appearance without revealing too much about their strange patient. As she opened the front door, however, she found a new predicament.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, she knew that something was amiss: the nostalgic Austrian shades in the parlor were drawn against the cheerful sunlight outside, and the entire house was silent. She knocked softly on the professor's bedroom door.

"Enter," came the weak reply.

She obeyed, and found Mechnikov lying in bed covered in many blankets. His thinning white hair was matted with sweat. He had managed to gather a bowl of water and a washcloth to ease his fever, but she could see that he had grown too exhausted to change the cloth.

"My God! What happened?" she cried as she hurried to his side and rinsed the cloth for him in the bowl beside his bed. That morning she had seen him in the pink of health.

His dry lips parted, and he answered with a rasp that was barely a whisper, "It was my own doing many years ago. My wife had passed before my eyes, suffering from an infection that perhaps I could have treated—if I had only known more about the disease! For months thereafter, I retreated to my laboratory to distract my mind… But of course, I could not forget her pain and my loneliness… In an effort to take my own life and join her, I pierced my veins with a syringe containing a relapsing fever, and injected myself with the virus." He closed his glassy eyes as she replaced the cloth on his forehead. "But Fate! I, who wanted to die, still live, and recurrences such as these happen almost seasonally. She, who wanted to live, had died—of microbes! What use am I, a scientist, if I cannot save the ones I love! My lonely years in the laboratory were for nothing!"

"Maybe you couldn't save her, but your research has saved others."

"But I loved _her_. I loved her, and then she was gone! In the end, I was the more miserable for having shared her companionship; it made her absence all the more painful. The loneliest of places are those where our memories together were once dearest. Daily I sit across from her empty chair. If only I had never loved!"

"Calm yourself, Monsieur, you need to rest."

"It will pass in a week or so."

"All the same," she replied, adjusting the old man's pillows.

But the fever had made him philosophical. "I was wrong about thanatology! There's more to death than merely wishing to be dead. All of our science is useless against the hand of God! Water!" he cried suddenly. "I'm terribly thirsty."

Alice returned with a pitcher of water and a glass. She held the glass to his lips as he drank, and much of the water ran into his beard instead of into his mouth. He took a deep breath when he was finished, then moaned, "Yes. Too much of my time is wasted in fighting God." He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

* * *

For the remainder of the day, Alice kept a careful watch over her ward. His fever recalled all of the unhappy memories of his wife's death, and the poor old man alternately cursed Fate then science as he tossed and turned in his bed.

When he slept, Alice tiptoed into his library and scanned the shelves for volumes mentioning disfigurement, hoping to find something useful for her new project. For several hours at a time, she curled up into one of the leather chairs beside the shelves and read. Five days passed in this manner, spent nursing Mechnikov's love for his dead wife or pondering Erik's love for Christine Daaé. And what of Alice's own beloved barrister? Alice, too, was lonely, for she also had loved and lost. And the three of them, she knew, were all hopeless. The barrister had left Paris long ago, and Mme. Mechnikov had left the world. And what good would it do to change Erik's appearance? Alone in the library, with only the musty tomes with which to share her musings, she would consider this question. A handsome face would not win him love from the woman he wanted. And rather, to a woman who loved him truly, his ugliness wouldn't matter at all. Love must be for something much more, for one's talents and ambitions… Erik had these in abundance. Her exploration of his house had revealed his expressive creativity and clever engineering. A woman should rather love him for these.

True, she had only met him once, briefly. But her mind had been fixated on the Opera Ghost for more than a month before meeting the man at last, and by then his eccentricity already intrigued her. What had seemed to her to be insanity weeks ago was now understood—and she feared that he would again try to take his own life. She continued reading in earnest, searching for a cure that would help him to live as other men. She made these efforts not because she wanted him to be handsome, but because she badly wanted him to be happy.


	14. The Secret of the Sûreté

Chapter 14: The Secret of the Sûreté

Early one bright afternoon, Captain Joseph Lefevre marched with sharp strides to the prefecture, a dossier under one arm. Much like his revered commissioner, the captain maintained a uniform worthy of great respect. His brass buttons shone in the sunlight as the tails of his uniform whipped around in the autumn wind. His shoes even made a pleasant clicking sound on the cobblestones. He smiled to himself as a band of young ladies along the road stopped to watch the handsome captain clip past. With soft brown eyes and a curling moustache, his appearance was more charming than his personality—as his unfortunate wife well knew.

Approaching the prefecture, he nodded to the officers on guard duty. They saluted the captain and swung open both of the heavy doors, and Lefevre entered without ever having broken his stride. The interior smelled of shoe polish and leather. He marched down a long, echoing corridor and rapped on the commissioner's door.

"Come in, Lefevre," commanded the voice from inside.

The captain entered with a quick salute, impatient to debrief the commissioner regarding his latest assignment. He knew he had badly bungled the investigation of the "catacombs corpse," and hoped to redeem himself in this new task. He found Commissioner Mifroid seated at his large oak desk, between two banker's lamps with green shades. Papers were stacked in three neat piles along the desk's edge, and five more piles, each one waist high, towered along the right wall. The blinds were drawn over a large bay window behind the desk, and bars of blinding afternoon sunlight lay over the entire scene. With his back to the window, the commissioner's figure was in shadow but for the bankers lamps, which lit his face from below.

"Sit down, Lefevre," Mifroid commanded, gesturing with a free hand to an armless chair behind the open door.

Lefevre sat.

Mifroid continued writing on some papers and added them to one of the piles on his desk.

Lefevre licked his lips, eager to begin their conference.

At last Mifroid sighed, straightened his uniform, and looked directly at Captain Lefevre. "Now, Captain, what is your report?"

Finally, here it was! Lefevre sat straighter in his armless chair and began: "The target is moving, Monsieur Commissioner. When you requested surveillance, we began with a single patrol man in front of the address." He opened the dossier and drew out a street map. "The patrol circled the block where the address was located, then circled the adjacent block, repeating this every quarter hour," he continued, indicating the path on the street map with his index finger. "The target was immobile until two days ago. Then she left the house and hailed a cab."

Mifroid leaned closer. "Where did she go?"

"She took a direct route across town to the Rue Scribe."

The commissioner rolled his eyes and sighed. "Lefevre, you know Alice is my daughter, and you know that my home is on the Scribe."

Lefevre looked up from his diagram, ready for the clincher. "But Monsieur Commissioner, the patrol man alerted our mounted standby, who followed your daughter. She didn't go to your house. She accessed a gate on the northwest side of the Opera Garnier."

Startled, the commissioner drew back in his chair. Lefevre suppressed a smile; it was precisely the reaction he was hoping for.

"Captain, where does that gate lead?"

Lefevre consulted the notes in his file. "We do not yet have that information, Monsieur Commissioner."

"Well, didn't your men follow her?"

"Negative, Monsieur. You stressed that the target must not become aware of our surveillance. The target closed the gate behind her when she entered, which relocked the gate. My men believed that attempting to open the gate and follow her would have alerted her to our presence. Also, the lock could not be picked."

"Explain."

This was the rough spot. Lefevre licked his lips and began the response he had rehearsed. "The mechanism inside the lock is iron, too heavy for our fine tools. But it's also very complex, so firmer material was also useless—"

"Captain," interrupted the commissioner, "I want to know whether that gate leads into the Opera or into the sewers. It's immaterial to me whether you learn this by entering the gate yourself or by consulting some architectural or municipal plans."

Lefevre's fingers curled his greasy moustache. _Plans!_ He should have thought of that angle! "I…"

The commissioner dismissed the matter with a waive of his hand. "How long was Alice inside?"

Lefevre checked his file. "About ninety minutes, Monsieur."

Mifroid grew quiet. What had she done behind that gate for over an hour?

Uncomfortable in the silence, Lefevre cleared his throat. "Er.. egress was through a northern door of the Opera, opening onto the Boulevard Haussmann."

"What?" Mifroid stood so quickly, his chair nearly tipped over. "So she _was_ inside the Opera! Did your men find out where _that_ door led?"

Again the captain's fingers twirled his moustache. "Their mission was to follow the target, Monsieur Commissioner."

"Which means 'no,'" Mifroid sighed, slumping back into his chair. "It's probably just as well. If they had entered the Opera without a warrant, Moncharmin would have given us trouble." He drummed his fingers on his desk in thought.

Lefevre continued to pull on his moustache.

Mifroid stopped tapping and leaned forward. "Continue your surveillance, Lefevre. If she enters the Opera again, follow her if you can. Make a report— and follow her _everywhere!"_

The meeting clearly over, Lefevre stood and saluted before replacing his hat and leaving the office, his step not quite as sharp as when he'd arrived.

Mifroid rose from his chair and paced the cramped room, digesting Lefevre's account. When his wife had told him that Alice had been discovered on the road, attempting to run away, he had suspected that his daughter was bitter about being withdrawn from the Catacomb Murder case. He even wondered if she hadn't gone mad. At the crime scene, she had been very astute, identifying fractures and injuries later confirmed by the morgue, but then she was suddenly deluded into thinking that the Opera Ghost had committed the crimes and lived beneath the Garnier in a house! It was impossible to deter her. He had considered placing guards to keep her inside the biologist's apartment, to protect her from future wanderings, but he hadn't forgotten her sharp observations that morning on the Place Denfert-Rochereau. Alice might pick up another lead, and he knew that she would follow it to the end, to prove to him that she could handle the investigation. It would certainly embarrass the Sûreté if a young woman solved one of their most difficult cases. Mifroid also worried that, in her naïveté, she would mistakenly allow the murderer to get the upper hand. These musings lead him to initiate the surveillance, and Lefevre, who had expressed a deep aversion towards Alice, was of course too eager to assist.

Yet for all his predictions and estimations, Mifroid could not understand what had happened with the gate, or even how Alice had found a way to open the lock. For her safety, and for the case, he might soon have to proceed beyond surveillance.

* * *

Alice was amazed to find Mechnikov well again after barely a week. His composure, too, had returned, and he no longer spoke heartrending soliloquies about death or the futility of his profession. In fact, very soon he returned to his experiments, and Alice felt secure in broaching the subject of a _face_.

She was preparing his lab instruments for another test, and his assistants had not yet arrived. Mechnikov was occupied with finding a book in his glass cabinet.

"Monsieur, I'm interested in learning about disfigurement," she began as she wiped a Petri dish with a coarse rag. "Your library doesn't have much information."

"Disfigurement?" he parroted, turning to her with a wrinkled face, the way one looks when finding a bad smell. "The principal danger from microorganisms is mutilation of the internal organs, not _cosmetic_ damage."

Alice winced. "Yes, Monsieur. But might even cosmetic damage cause other complications? Respiration? Mobility?"

"So there might be value in knowledge about disfigurement" he nodded. "That is understandable, and there has been some research in the field. What in particular did you want to know?"

"What causes defects from birth? And can these be reversed?"

He found the book he would reference for the experiment and drew it out of the cabinet. "Do you mean when the disfigurement has affected the full body?"

"Well, I—" she turned back to her work, her cheeks suddenly growing hot. "I suppose I don't know," she mumbled. She scrubbed the table vigorously with her rag. "If the body appears to have an ordinary shape—two arms, two legs—but facial cartilage is lacking, would this disfigurement be expected to have affected the rest of the body as well?"

"Mobility would be virtually impossible, if the joints had no cartilage," he replied, frowning. "But I reckon whether the entire body were affected would depend on the cause of the disfigurement. That was what you asked initially, correct?"

"Yes."

"Most birth defects are still a mystery, Mademoiselle. Who can say why one individual never grows more than a metre tall, or why one has stumps instead of hands?"

"Monsieur, are you suggesting that these disfigurements have no scientific source, that these poor souls are merely cursed?"

He sighed and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "God organized His universe around common principles. Science simply hasn't progressed far enough yet for us to understand all the mysteries of life. Someday we will, Mademoiselle. That's why it's important for us to conduct these experiments, so we continue to learn."

They both turned as a knock sounded from the front door.

"Ah! Our assistants have finally arrived," he announced excitedly as Alice put down her rag and left to open the door.

But the two men on the front step were not Dr. Mechnikov's assistants. She recognized one of the men as Armand Moncharmin from the Opera Garnier. The other was much taller and had a curling moustache.

It was Moncharmin who spoke first. "Oh, goodness! It's you, Mademoiselle Mifroid! We have come to speak to Doctor Mechnikov. Er… this _is_ the correct address?"

The taller man started at the mention of her name. "Mifroid? The Sûreté Commissioner's daughter?"

Alice smiled pleasantly. "Yes, I'm Commissioner Mifroid's daughter. This is Dr. Mechnikov's residence. He's tutoring me in microbiology and we are conducting an experiment today. Do come in, please." She curtsied and led them into Mechnikov's parlor, then went to alert the professor.

"A strange girl—dabbling in police investigation, and now in biology?" Richard commented as he removed his tophat.

"Let's hope her 'experiments' interest her enough to keep her out of our business," quipped Moncharmin.

Both men stood again as the professor entered the parlor, still wearing his white lab coat.

"Forgive me, gentlemen," he said in greeting while shaking their hands. "I was not expecting guests today. As my student explained, we are preparing for an experiment."

Richard cleared his throat as the three of them sat down. "Then, uh, we won't keep you long, Doctor. We have come on rather unusual business, frankly. I am Firmin Richard, and this is Armand Moncharmin. We manage the Opera Garnier."

Mechnikov's unruly grey eyebrows rose in surprise, and he leaned forward in his chair. "Then it is truly unusual business, indeed. I'm neither a musician nor much of a patron, I'm afraid."

"What we require is your scientific expertise," Moncharmin confessed.

Mechnikov was nonplussed.

"No doubt you have heard of our… ghost problems," Richard explained. "We suspect that there might be some trickery involved. We've planned a séance for Friday night, to tempt this imposter to do something rash. I realize it sounds quite ridiculous. Actually we are inviting scientists—such as yourself—and other skeptics to help us catch this joker in his act."

"But this Friday is—"

"—the Thirteenth," Richard answered with a knowing smile. "The perfect ambience."

Alice entered the parlor carrying a tray of tea and small pastries.

"You are no doubt inviting the police as well?" Mechnikov inquired as she passed around the teacups.

Moncharmin nearly choked on his tea. "Certainly not! Er… excuse me, Mademoiselle," he said when Alice cast him a sharp glance. "It's just that the police have investigated the Ghost for at least a year and have found nothing. We need… fresh minds."

"And we prefer to keep our plans secret," Richard added, "if you take my meaning, Monsieur."

"What time will you begin this 'séance'?"

"We must gather before midnight, Doctor."

"I should like to bring my student with me."

The two managers exchanged glances. "The Commissioner's daughter? But she's already been involved in the investigation!"

"I assure you, Messieurs, she's quite perceptive."

"She's also quite nosy!" Moncharmin exploded.

Mechnikov raised a silencing hand. "I attend with my assistant or not at all. I give you my word that she will stay quiet the entire time and will not leave my side. Those are my conditions."

Richard's shoulders slumped, defeated. "Doctor, we need your service badly."

Mechnikov stood, placing his teacup on the table. The managers followed suit. "In that case, Messieurs, the two of _us_ shall see the two of _you_ on Friday before midnight."


	15. La Séance!

Chapter 15: La Séance!

The Opera managers were not to be disappointed in their choice of schedule. Friday night arrived with impressive exhibition as a furious storm brought with it heavy rains and screaming winds. Alice pulled the collar of her cloak tight around her neck as she descended from the carriage that the managers had sent. A sudden gale startled the horses and nearly stole the umbrella from Dr. Mechnikov's hand. Fighting their way through the bedlam to the Opera Garnier, Alice and the professor struggled to keep their footing.

"Keep close to me when we get inside!" Mechnikov instructed, shouting to be heard over the wind. Alice nodded. After the managers' visit, she had explained to her tutor her involvement in the case of the murder on the Place Denfert-Rochereau, and the reason many people now objected to her further participation. Of course, she had concealed her discovery of the home of the Opera Ghost.

Lightning exposed the Garnier's colossal façade. Alice noticed with alarm that there were no lights in the windows and the outside lamps were also dark and lifeless.

The two visitors climbed the limestone steps against the wind. When they reached the safety of the eaves and Mechnikov struggled to close the umbrella, a door beside them opened tentatively.

Richard, wearing a formal swallowtail suit, stood in the doorway. He bowed to the two newcomers as they brushed the icy rainwater off their shoulders. "Mademoiselle Mifroid and Doctor Mechnikov, most welcome." He gestured with an exaggerated flourish to the interior of the Opera.

They stepped into the foyer, which was veiled in twisted shadows. In the center of the hall, nine chairs surrounded a large, round table lit by candelabra. The rain drummed against the windows like the impatient tapping of bony fingers. Richard himself took the visitors' coats and the dripping umbrella, while Moncharmin introduced them to the other guests. All were dressed as formally as Richard; the managers had instructed everyone to wear their finest attire, to produce the proper atmosphere. Mechnikov, who himself occasionally attended theater, had aired out his suit as requested. Alice had selected a white satin dress with golden trim and wore her long, white opera gloves.

She was relieved to learn that she was not the only woman attending the circle. Moncharmin introduced them to Marie Curie and her husband Pierre, the reserved physicist of the Sorbonne. The couple were a stern lot with drawn faces. Also in attendance was Mme. Giry, who, as Moncharmin explained, was the usher for the notorious Box Five. A frail gentleman with a curling, grey moustache was introduced as Marcellin Berthelot, a chemist from the Académie des Sciences.

The Curies had some experience in matters of séance, and had been recounting another incident to Berthelot, who still awaited the end of the tale with rapt attention.

"There was no explanation for the sudden wind that swept through the circle," Mme. Curie narrated once introductions were complete. "It was not a drafty room, and winds like that never blow through a house unless a window is open. And I assure you, Messieurs and Madames, all the windows were tightly closed!"

Mme. Giry nodded in absolute understanding.

Berthelot, however, was baffled. "But there must be a scientific phenomenon behind it!"

M. Curie crossed his arms. "In fact, there is, good Monsieur. But it is not an explanation that is widely accepted in our community of academia. The fact is, there are substances invisible to the human eye, which nevertheless can exert a physical force."

"Are you suggesting ghosts, Monsieur?" Berthelot laughed.

"We don't yet have a name for it," admitted Mme. Curie. "And there was far more than wind that night, to convince us of a _presence_."

Suddenly a hurried rapping interrupted the conversation. The scientists all hushed and turned toward the door. Richard, who had busied himself in lighting a fire in the fireplace, took slow and careful steps to the door and opened it just enough to peer outside.

"Monsieur," demanded an authoritative voice on the other side, "it's raining cats and dogs out here. Will you open the door wide enough so that I can enter, or will you have me do that myself?"

"Oh!" Richard sighed in relief, "I apologize, My Lord!" He opened the door wide and bowed quite low to the imposing figure that entered.

"Judge Henri Brousseau!" Moncharmin announced, and went immediately to attend to their guest of honor. The judge surveyed the room with his black eyes and stroked his short, brown beard. While Richard disposed of the judge's coat, hat, and umbrella, Moncharmin began formally introducing the guests to the judge, who presided over a magistrate's court on Paris' left bank.

Alice had met enough men of the Law through her father's work, and was therefore not as impressed as were the other guests. While they flocked to the new arrival, she turned to the fireplace and admired a lapis lazuli urn on the mantel. Her cheeks and fingertips, made raw by the weather, regained their vigor while she watched the fire's reflection dance on two gilded statues flanking the urn.

She was startled when a small paper fell into her hand. Upon it was a note in hasty handwriting, written in some sort of vermilion ink:

"Mademoiselle Mifroid,  
Find some pretext to break away from your duties next Tuesday morning and come to the gate, to tell me what you've learned concerning my condition.  
Throw this note into the fire before my managers see you.  
~ Erik.

P.S. Please do not be frightened by what you see tonight. I will not harm you."

How had he sent her this letter? Alice examined the gilded mirror above the mantel, but could see nothing out of the ordinary. She studied the note again, tracing the assertive lines in the letters of his name. _Please do not be afraid by what you see tonight_… Obediently, she let the paper fall from her hand into the hungry flames.

"Mademoiselle Mifroid," Moncharmin called. Alice turned to see the manager approach with the judge. "My Lord," said Moncharmin to his companion, "this is Alice Mifroid, daughter of Michel Mifroid, Police Commissioner of the Sûreté."

Alice executed a graceful curtsy, watching the two men for any indication that they had seen the note. Thankfully, Moncharmin appeared to be too preoccupied by the judge, and the judge too preoccupied in himself, for either of them to have noticed anything.

"Madames and Messieurs," called Richard from beside the round table, "Now that we are all here and properly introduced, let us sit at the circle and begin the preparations for the séance!"

The excited guests assembled at the table in the middle of the foyer. A roar filled the hall as nine wooden chairs were pulled back to permit their occupants.

"Join hands," Mme. Giry commanded in a sober voice, when everyone was seated. She waited while the guests complied. "This is a séance, a communication with the spirits among us. Steady your nerves, and empty your hearts of negative energy."

A sudden clap of thunder caused the guests to jump; Mme. Curie gasped.

Mme. Giry hardly moved, the feather in her hat very still. "Concentrate… focus your mind on opening a channel with these spirits."

A knock sounded three times on the door. This time, all the guests gasped, including Judge Brousseau.

"Should… Should I answer it?" Richard asked the group.

All heads turned toward the door as the doorknob turned on its own. The door opened slowly, with a low moan. A figure with light footsteps and an unusual hat entered the foyer.

Alice recognized the Persian at once, but she dared not say anything.

He shook off his soaked coat, and cast his unnerving jade eyes upon the circle of people. "Messieurs and Madames, excuse me. I understand that there is a séance tonight, and I wish to inquire if I might attend."

"You!" shouted Richard, a bit embarrassed at having been so startled. "You're always meddling in the Opera's affairs! This is an invitation-only event."

"Allow me to make my case, Monsieur. As you say, I am frequently at the Opera and, as you are aware, my curiosity has often led me down into the cellars. I do hear people whispering about me, and I think you might be suspicious of me. Let me join your circle so I can prove that I am not behind what happens in the Garnier. You can observe me yourself and be fully satisfied that if something happens tonight, I was not the cause of it."

Richard snorted.

"The man makes a compelling argument, Monsieur Richard," the judge commented. "I would not object to his joining us. In fact, I would like for him to sit beside me, so that I can watch him myself and see if he commits any trickery."

An extra chair was brought for the newcomer, and the Persian took his place beside the judge. The guests again joined hands, and Mme. Giry repeated her commands.

"Focus your minds; open a channel of communication with the spirits!"

There was a pause, in which the air grew denser as each person struggled to reach out with their senses and feel any disembodied presence in the room.

Mme. Giry continued, "We are here tonight to speak with one particular spirit. To make him aware that we seek him, we have an item of his possession: the manuscript of _Don Juan Triumphant_, which this spirit wrote with his own hands!" So saying, she held the ream above her head for all to see.

Alice had been unaware of the rumors surrounding _Don Juan_'s origins. It had never occurred to her that Erik was the author of that extraordinary work. She recalled the power of the music, how it had controlled her. It was the work of an incredible maestro.

Mme. Giry placed the manuscript in the center of the tabletop, beside the candelabra, and opened to the first page.

All the guests drew near, to see the writing of the spirit whom they sought. Music and verse danced across the page, in the same scratchy handwriting that Alice had seen on the note by the fireplace, and penned with the same vermilion ink. She imagined Erik authoring the piece at his pipe organ while his long fingers flitted from the keys to his pen.

"Spirit," Mme. Giry called, raising her voice, "if you are among us, make your presence known!"

The great clock in the fireplace mantel struck twelve. As the hour pealed, ten pairs of eyes stared at the music of _Don Juan_. The guests concentrated on summoning the Opera Ghost. Alice stared until the notes seemed to sear her eyes. The harder she stared, the brighter the music seemed to burn.

"Impossible!" cried Berthelot.

Alice blinked. It was not a trick of her imagination. The music was, in fact, burning. The flame seemed to start from the handwriting itself—the Phantom's perversion of the page. It snaked along the score, then increased in intensity until the entire manuscript was ablaze!

"My God!" exclaimed Judge Brousseau, "A fire!"

"Put it out before the whole table ignites!" shouted Berthelot.

Richard only stared, his frightened eyes as wide as saucers.

Acting on instinct, M. Curie tore off his swallowtail jacket and beat the fire with it until he had extinguished the flames. He fell back into his chair, shaken.

The guests looked at each other with terrified faces. Their hands were no longer joined merely for tradition—they all but clung to each other.

"Messieurs Moncharmin and Richard," said Mme. Giry, "the spirit you seek is here. You may ask your questions."

"This was your idea, Richard," Moncharmin hissed. "Ask the Ghost a question!"

Richard licked his lips. "Opera Ghost, our cast fears you, and w-we've had some trouble maintaining our standards. We would be… humbly indebted to you for any advice that you would offer."

A sudden gust of wind blew across the room, knocking the candelabra to the floor, scattering the ashes that had been _Don Juan_, and stifling the fire in the fireplace. The foyer was thrown into darkness.

A frightful whimper escaped Alice's lips. _I will not harm you_…

"Messieurs," said the Persian calmly, "perhaps the window on the far wall has sprung open."

Moncharmin broke the circle and rose to inspect the window. He lost his footing against the fallen candelabra and stumbled into Mme. Curie. A brilliant flash of lightening briefly illuminated the foyer, allowing him to get his bearings. But the lightning also revealed that the window on the far side _was still closed_!

Judge Brousseau's jaw fell open in disbelief, but none saw this happen because almost as soon as the lightning had appeared, it was gone again. A heartbeat later, a rolling clap of thunder shook the Opera Garnier.

The guests continued to hold hands, terrified that one of their number would be pulled away by unseen hands if they let go. As the thunder faded, the heavy patter of raindrops slowly ceased, and the storm blew itself out. Soon, the séance was in utter darkness and total silence.

Before anyone could relax or suggest striking a match, the group perceived the subtle sound of a violin beginning a slow, whimsical melody. The measured notes climbed the scale and descended again, at an even and contemplative pace, leading to a fanciful _Arabian_ embellishment.

"Do all of you hear that, or have I gone mad?" asked the judge.

The music seemed to come from every corner of the room. It could only be a performance by the Opera Ghost. Alice closed her eyes and allowed the music to soothe her nerves as the Phantom's voice had done when she had opened the Rue Scribe gate.

"Hey, you.. Persian," Richard called in the darkness. "Do you know this music?"

The Persian's nervous chuckle was audible above the fragile violin. "Not I, Monsieur."

"_I_ recognize it," said Mechnikov with surprise. The music continued as he struggled with his recollection. "I heard it this past summer, when I visited family in Russia. We attended a concert in Moscow, of some new works by Ippolitov-Ivanov. I believe this is one of his pieces."

As if to confirm what Mechnikov said, the violin grew louder.

"I don't understand this Ghost," confessed Richard. "How does this help us with our cast?"

"Perhaps the ghost prefers that you seek advice from this composer," the judge responded.

As suddenly as it had begun, the music stopped.

"Hello?" Moncharmin called out. "Hello? Is that correct? Should we bring Ippolitov-Ivanov to the Opera Garnier?"

There was no reply.

"The spirit is no longer with us," announced Mme. Giry. "I believe it has given its answer."

With a deafening bark, the fire in the fireplace returned to life on its own.


	16. The Boy of Nizhni Novgorod

Chapter 16: The Boy of Nizhni Novgorod

Captain Lefevre watched the frightening séance from behind one of the foyer's velvet curtains. He had followed Alice Mifroid from the biologist's home, surprised that a carriage had come to take her and Mechnikov to the Paris Opera. From his post in the foyer, Lefevre had seen her receive a small note from the air, read it, and throw it to the flames. The captain's senses were alert—some plan was afoot!

Thus it was that when _Don Juan_ ignited and the lights went out and the gust of wind proved to have no source, Lefevre was not afraid, because he believed that it was all an elaborate scheme.

Not _very_ afraid, at least.

Truthfully, if he allowed himself to consider, he could not fathom _how_ the score had caught fire by itself, or _where_ the wind could have come from, if not from the supernatural.

The Sûreté do not believe in such things.

Nevertheless, Lefevre envied those at the table, as they clung to each other for safety in the darkness while the storm blew itself out. The captain could only cling to his curtains; his pistol little comfort against a ghost in the night. When he heard the lilting violin, he made the brave decision to find its source. The more he considered the matter, the more he was convinced that a man—a live one—was making this music from the shadows. Thus he left the foyer and made his way deeper into the Garnier.

Unfortunately for Lefevre, the sound seemed to come from every side of the Opera. He no sooner reached one dark corner, when his ears would determine that the music came from some place else. In this way he crept past the grand staircase and through a narrow passageway, without noticing where he was going. He moved so swiftly in his zeal to catch the fraud, that he was several cellars beneath the earth when the violin ceased its whimsical score. The music had so hypnotized him that he was now surprised to find himself surrounded by darkness.

He stretched out his hands before him as he crashed into props and scenery. Where were the stairs that had taken him to the cellar? Was this the same hallway through which he had come? Lefevre began to panic as he realized that he was quite hopelessly lost.

* * *

Above him, the séance circle was deadly silent. Pallid faces stared at each other with wide eyes, then everyone began to speak at once:

"… impossible for the ink to burn before the paper ignites!" Berthelot was saying.

"How will we find this Russian fellow?" asked Moncharmin.

"… significantly more physical demonstrations than we've ever seen before," Mme. Curie confessed.

"This is _prima facie_ evidence of a true ghost!" proclaimed the judge.

As the guests chattered excitedly, Richard motioned to Mechnikov. "Doctor," he whispered, "I shall be most obliged if you would assist me in finding Ippolitov-Ivanov." Mechnikov nodded, and the two left the table.

Alice observed the new chaos around her while her mind reeled from Erik's performance. He was proving to be a powerful magician—if not more than that! The manuscript had caught fire as if from the Devil's touch! And from whence had come that delightful music? She stared into the foyer's shadows, but her eyes were unable to penetrate the darkness. Was he standing nearby? Could he see her?

Still as a statue and all but forgotten, the Persian sat in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the others. Berthelot and M. Curie were on their hands and knees, gathering some of the flaky ashes from _Don Juan Triumphant_. Moncharmin was examining the fireplace, trying not to burn himself despite nearly climbing into the fire himself. Mechnikov and Richard whispered quietly in a far corner. On the other side of the table, Mme. Giry recounted more tales of the Opera Ghost's tricks to Mme. Curie and Judge Brousseau. The Persian's strange, jade eyes fixated on Alice Mifroid. He had expected her to insist on investigating the entire Opera after Erik's presumptuous display during the séance, but she merely sat wide-eyed and flushed while the scientists all squawked on about their theories.

The Persian rose and circled the table to the reserved Alice.

She blinked and looked up at him. "Oh…," she stammered, coming out of her thoughts.

He raised a hand to silence her, and nodded his head toward the group at the other end of the table. He sat in one of the vacant chairs beside her and drew near, so they would not be overheard. "Mademoiselle, I've been observing you this evening. You did not come here tonight to _solve the mystery_ in which you previously held such a keen interest."

She lowered her eyes, lest they betray the truth.

"Your face tells me everything, Mademoiselle. You've spoken with Erik, even if you haven't actually seen him. His crimes are all but forgotten."

She felt the room grow unbearably hot. "It's true, Monsieur. When I was at your apartment, I found a key in your fireplace—" at this, the Persian uttered an oath under his breath, "—and I found it fit the lock of the gate on the Rue Scribe. He was at home when I entered…"

"_Wallahi!_ He was expecting Mlle. Daaé! He must have been enraged to see you instead!"

"Yes," she whispered, "he certainly was. Although… in fact, it wasn't me who was in danger, but himself. When he realized that the woman he loved did not—_would_ not—return his sentiments, how he suffered!"

The Persian began to pull on his long, black beard, as was his habit when considering grave matters. "When did this happen?"

"Less than a fortnight ago. To console him, I offered to search for any cure for his deformity… What am I to do, Monsieur? It has been nearly two weeks, and I've found nothing!"

He smiled. "I find it ironic, that a fortnight ago you would have sought his death for his crimes. Your father is the Police Commissioner of the Sûreté, who is overseeing the investigation of the Opera Ghost. You are hiding a criminal from the police, Mademoiselle! Erik's sad existence may have softened your heart, but understand that your actions go against the law, and you put yourself in danger—and not only with the Sûreté!"

"I'm aware, Monsieur," she responded as she crossed her arms. "And I'm sure that _you_ lied to protect me as much as to help your friend. But I honestly think that Erik can change. He… explained to me his circumstances—"

"And what of the murder? The one you told me about in the library—_when_ will Erik change? Mlle. Daaé was naïve, too, and Erik's broken heart provoked his savage vengeance! You risk too much, for who knows what will happen when his expectations are disappointed?"

Alice shook her head. "When he learned that Mlle. Daaé was not returning for him, it was not me whom he wished to kill, but himself. If Erik were the callous man you've described, I'm certain that I would have met my death that day. Have you forgotten your own reasons for saving his life in your country? Your alternating pity, admiration, and fear of him seemed strange to me when you first explained, but now I understand completely."

The Persian read the honesty in her eyes and sighed. To say more would make him a hypocrite; he could hardly defend the half-hearted arguments that he had just espoused. Nevertheless, her complete change of opinion stunned him.

Not long after they had exchanged these words, Mechnikov returned from his conversation in the shadows with Richard. He assisted Alice into her overcoat before throwing on his own. "I believe we may be in luck," he explained as they left. "Ippolitov-Ivanov is in Paris for the winter, if the gossip columns are to be trusted. Richard and I plan to call on him tomorrow afternoon—the sooner, the better, says Richard. Would you care to join us? This should prove to be most interesting."

* * *

At half past three the following day, the two gentlemen and Alice Mifroid called on the Russian composer. A maid led them into a parlor unlike any Alice had ever seen. Like a museum, the brick walls were covered in artifacts from the Middle Ages. Above the mantelpiece was a large image from an illuminated manuscript, enamel painted on gilded paper. Her gaze left the portrait as the three guests sat around a coffee table with a gold ikon of the Holy Virgin resting on top. The ikon was at least as old as the illustration, Alice guessed, and was equally beautiful, despite the heavy wear of the enamel and the absence of some of the pearls bordering the Virgin. Beneath the table, and spreading out beneath the chairs on which the visitors now sat, was a thick carpet in a bright, geometrical design that reminded her of the carpet in the Persian's drawing room, although this one had straight lines and sharp angles instead of gently curling and elaborate florettes. Only an upright piano in a corner revealed the house to be that of a musician. The room was so unlike Mechnikov's parlor that Alice wondered if the two men were indeed of the same nationality.

She did not ponder long, however, before the man himself entered the room.

Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov was rather short and rotund, with pudgy hands that moved constantly when he talked, as if he conducted his conversations in the same manner that he conducted an orchestra. Alice was disappointed—was this indeed the man that Erik had put forward to lead his Opera to glory? Had there been some mistake?

The composer greeted them all warmly—especially Mechnikov, whose accomplishments were the pride of their shared nation. The two debated the contrast between life in Russia and in France, while the maid laid out tea. At last Ippolitov-Ivanov surveyed his three visitors and asked what had brought them to his door.

Richard rubbed his sweaty palms on his knees. "We had a rather unusual suggestion that you perform some of your work at the Opera."

Ippolitov-Ivanov's eyes brightened. "Why, I would be delighted! Quite an honor! And which of these is my admirer who recommended me?"

"We don't know who he is," offered Mechnikov. "In fact, we didn't talk to him directly. He played one of your pieces, which put us on to you."

"How interesting! What did he play?"

"I confess I have forgotten the name, though I remembered hearing it in Moscow six months ago."

Ippolitov-Ivanov leaned forward. "Could you perhaps hum it for me?"

Mechnikov obliged, although no one would mistake him for a performer.

"Aha!" cried the composer. "This is my _Procession of the Sardar_."

"Procession of the What?" asked Richard.

"A sardar is an Afghan lord," he explained, turning to Richard with amusement. "The _Procession_ is actually the fourth movement of an orchestral suite that I call _Caucasian Sketches_. Each movement describes a different land of the Caucasus Mountains."

"And have you met a… um.. a sardar?"

Their lively host laughed, his generous front shaking from his mirth. "No, sir, no. But I've seen some of the region, and had plenty of material to inspire me." His gaze traveled around the room, resting on his beloved artifacts. "In fact, I wouldn't have been able to compose these pieces had I not gone to direct a music conservatory in Tbilisi. And I wouldn't have done _that_, had I not myself received an unusual suggestion."

"How did you receive this suggestion?" Alice inquired, returning her teacup to its saucer. She had a strange premonition that she knew who had sent the composer on his journey.

"I was visiting a fair while in Nizhni Novgorod when I was still a young pupil of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. There was an unfortunate youth there about my same age, whose singing and violin music delighted all of us.

"But the poor young man had a head like a corpse, one with no nose and no eyes that we could see. His music was more beautiful than anything I had ever heard, more lovely than even the music at the conservatory. He sang in a lilting foreign tongue (no doubt that of the gypsies with which he traveled) and played whimsical, intricate airs on his violin.

"I was so fascinated that I returned to the youth's tent later in the evening, when most of the gawkers had gone home. An eager student, I wanted to ask whether he had learned his skills from the gypsies or elsewhere. His performance had so captivated me, that if he had answered that he learned from the gypsies, I would have quit the conservatory right then and joined the vagrants with him.

"But he answered me, in his beautiful voice—which was just as rich when he spoke as when he sang—that should I wish to gain something of his skill, I would best stay as I was until I had a solid foundation in music theory, and then hear everything that I could in Tbilisi. Imagine my surprise at this answer, for my classmates at the conservatory considered the region to be quaint but outdated. Ah, I learned much from my time in that old city, for though the people's traditions are old, it is this timelessness that lends beauty to things. I collected many of my artifacts from there, and they—along with my memory—serve to inspire me. Doubtless the young lad had himself visited the city, for one cannot invoke its magic unless one has made a rigorous study of it. Shall I play the first movement of my _Sketches_, to demonstrate? Now that you have heard my explanation, you cannot help but hear the exotic land in the music." With a nod from Richard, who had after all come to see if this man could help his Company, the composer rose from his chair and went to the piano, where he began performing another astonishing score.

As she listened to the audition, Alice considered that the boy of Nizhni Novgorod could only have been Erik in his youth. No doubt his talent helped him to endure a most trying time, when he was all but a prisoner of his circumstances, obliged to show the world what he only wanted to hide. Despite his torture, he had patiently offered some advice to a fledgling musician who was his own age, though clearly his inferior in skill. And Erik had been to Tbilisi, that austere but exotic city in the Caucuses. The relics decorating the composer's parlor now had special significance—had Erik's golden eyes once rested on golden treasures such as these?


	17. Breakfast in a Garden Beneath the World

Chapter 17: Breakfast in a Garden Beneath the World

When Alice went to speak to Erik early on Tuesday morning, her mind was still spinning with all that she had learned about him. Her thoughts flitted from the mystery of his past to the magnificence of his talents to the disappointment of her research. She had been unable to find a definite cause of his deformation, let alone a cure, and feared that to tell him so would crush all of his hopes.

The sun was only just beginning to rise when she arrived at the quiet Rue Scribe. She shivered in the freezing air and tugged the collar of her cloak closer around her neck. The path down to the lake lay in darkness, and she hadn't brought a lantern. She was dismayed to find no fire circling the lake as she had seen on her last visit, and no boat awaiting her at the end of the path. There was little light, and she could only make out dark shadows in the weak dawn that transcended through the gate and down the twisting stairs. The air was warmer here, and she removed her cloak as she peered into the darkness to see if any light were burning by the house.

The blackness swam before her eyes and played tricks with her mind—soon she saw tiny, bright spots swaying in the empty space. She diverted her eyes, and the spots disappeared. When she looked up again, there they were, closer now than before: three spots, one brighter than the others…

It wasn't her imagination—it was Erik coming with a shaded lantern, his golden eyes glowing high above the lantern's flame. As he came closer in his boat, she could see that he wore the dressing gown with the art nouveau print that she had found hanging in his apartments. The wide belt was tied around his thin waist like the sash of a sultan. She noticed that his bare hands and neck were without blemish, though frightfully pale.

He arrived at her feet and stared at her from inside the boat. He had seen her several times before, but never like this: her hair hung unbound, the luscious ringlets cascading to her waist. Her olive green dress brightened her eyes and made them shine like two lustrous gems. Astonished, he wondered for a moment if it were _he_ whom she desired to impress.

It was several minutes before he could compose himself. "Forgive me, Mademoiselle, I was not expecting you quite so early, and now you see me as I am," he said in his rich voice, gesturing to his casual attire. "I heard my doorbell and knew that you had arrived."

"I'm sorry to have woken you, Monsieur," she responded, wondering about the _doorbell_. "You asked me to come in the morning, but Dr. Mechnikov rises so early. I could only break away while he was asleep, to avoid raising his suspicions."

"Then it is I who should apologize for having disturbed your schedule. But as you are here, and if you have not yet eaten, will you join me for a little breakfast in my garden?"

Alice was quite confused by his invitation, for she had explored his little house quite thoroughly and did not remember finding any kitchen, let alone a garden! And this wasn't the season for picnicking. Nevertheless, she offered a radiant smile before giving him her hand so he could help her into the boat.

Yet as soon as his fingers touched hers, she instinctively withdrew her arm.

"How cold your hands are!"

"Ah, yes," he moaned, "I'd forgotten that I wore gloves when we last met."

He did not extend her his hand again, but held the boat steady while she stepped over the rim and seated herself. Then, without another word, he guided his vessel homeward.

The water lapped against the boat in rhythmic splashes. With the lantern between them, Alice watched Erik at his work. Although he was quite slender, yet there was such strength to his every movement. He wasn't even winded by the early exercise.

She ached to ask him so many things, and not knowing where to begin, said nothing.

He sensed her discomfort and struggled to make some conversation. "I beg you, please excuse my earlier behavior. When we met in the catacombs and when you last came to my home… I confess that I'm not used to visitors." He turned to watch the oily ripples swirl against the hull of the boat as it glided across the lake.

"It's no more than I deserved, for my ill motives. I don't regret our having met."

"You're unusual, Mademoiselle. Very few have seen Erik, but those that have met him rue the day." He sighed as though he had forgotten she was there. Alice understood: It was very rare indeed for the Phantom willingly to take another to his home.

When they arrived at the dock, he tied the mooring and offered to her his arm to assist her. Then, taking up the lantern, he gestured towards the left. "My garden is this way."

She followed him around a corner, and watched as he pressed his fingertips against one of the stones in the wall. There was a muffled click from somewhere beneath her feet, and then a piece of the wall in front of her began sliding backwards with great rasping sounds, revealing a dark and empty corridor. He led her inside, their footsteps echoing in the hollow space.

When they had stepped only a few meters into the hallway, she saw a lever with a rotten leather handle jutting out from the wall. Erik pulled the lever as wordlessly as he had performed his other tricks. Then he led her down the hall, while she wondered what pulling the lever had accomplished, since it had made no sound, and none of the walls that she could see had moved.

The air in the narrow corridor was very stale. She kept her arm in his, to give her balance on the uneven ground, and she was grateful for this contact in the unfamiliar darkness beyond the lantern. She again caught the earthy scent that seemed to fall from his dressing gown like heavy smoke tumbling from a burning censor, and it comforted her.

The hallway ended in a large sheet of metal, very much like a door but twice as tall and without any doorknob. Flakes of rust coated its grimy surface. With a flashing grin in her direction, Erik kicked a wall stone by the floor. Alice heard the echoes of more machinery beneath her feet and in the wall beside them. Soon the metal wall began to move, rotating on a central pivot. Light spilled out from the other side, and Erik turned down the gas in the lantern. When the wall had moved enough for a man to fit through, he led her into his garden.

Alice had only seen the torture chamber in the flickering shadows of her lantern, on the night she had explored Erik's house. Now, the octagonal room was bathed in beautiful light, springing from an unseen source recessed in the ceiling. The cheerful rays reflected off of the mirrors and gave the appearance of a forest at midday. The iron tree that she had seen was now a thousand trees, and she and Erik were alone together in a garden beneath the world.

He watched her turning around and around, her features radiant with an endearing expression of amazement. He took his leave, afraid his eyes would engrave her dancing form on his heart forever. "If you'll excuse me, Mademoiselle," he said in his velvet voice, "I will bring breakfast. I'll leave my trapdoors open, should you need anything." He offered her a courtly bow in his dressing gown before taking the path back the way they had come.

It was well that he left the doors open for her, for she had not forgotten that the lovely garden was a replica of a torture chamber built in Persia.

Nevertheless, the secluded forest in the warm sunlight was a relaxing place to await breakfast. More than once, she had to touch the glass to remind herself that it was an illusion. She even imagined that she heard birds chirping high in the treetops, although these were more likely rats squealing behind the walls. At last she chose to sit with her back braced against the great iron tree, thinking how wonderful it would be to eat every meal in such a garden, without ever worrying about unfavorable weather.

Erik returned, dressed in a dashing swallowtail suit and carrying a tremendous armload of items, which he spread out at her feet. First was a gingham linen they could use as a picnic blanket. Onto this he unloaded a basket brimming with food. A baguette stuck out of one side of the basket, and there were sharp cheeses and venison with other coldmeats. There were even a few fruits, a warm teapot, and the plates and teacups and other utensils that they would need. To amuse her, he had also brought his violin. This he laid carefully off to one side before taking a seat facing Alice.

He could not explain why he had brought her here.

"May I offer you some Mazenderan tea?" he asked instead, showing her the teapot.

The brew was sweet and smelled of lilacs and jasmine. "Did you take these leaves with you when you left Persia?"

He nodded, hardly surprised anymore at how much she knew about him.

"You've been to such interesting places! M. Ippolitov-Ivanov told me about a boy he had met at a Russian fair. I'm certain that was you."

He nodded again as he spread cheese on a piece of bread and handed it to her. "Yes, it was Erik. It's good that my managers have taken my advice. Ippolitov-Ivanov certainly doesn't have much of a commanding appearance, but at least his music is cultured."

"And it was you, then, who wrote _Don Juan Triumphant_, which the managers used at the séance to summon the Opera Ghost?"

At this question, made in such tones of obvious admiration, he smiled and at last lifted his eyes to hers. "Yes, it was me."

Alice returned the smile. "It was incredible! Your music conveyed such indescribable moods!— _inspired_ intense feelings!"

He well understood what she meant, and could imagine what effect his music had on her young, impressionable heart.

"You are quite a magician in that sense," she continued. "Your creations arouse powerful sentiments. Like this garden, for example." She lifted her chin as though enjoying a stirring summer breeze. "One can't help but be happy here."

"It isn't always so," he answered, and lowered his eyes as he remembered… (_"The wall is hot! The wall is burning hot!")_

But of course, Alice didn't know what had happened between Erik and Christine. Instead, she thought he only meant that the garden had also been a torture chamber, or at least the one in Persia had been. "Is that why you built another one here in Paris—to have a garden you could visit without leaving the cellars?"

He nodded as he poured more tea. In the uncomfortable silence, she could hear the flowery drink gurgling into her cup. Erik's unusual reticence vexed her.

"What did the lever in the hallway do?"

"That gave us light."

"Charming! and quite clever, too! Why all this? Why did you invite me to have breakfast with you, here in your wonderful private garden?"

He cleared his throat and set down his plate. "You remember well, I think, what happened when we last met. Your words had a great effect on me—no one ever had such kind words for me… I'm in earnest when I say that I owe you my life… And I never regret anything as much as I regret how I mistreated you then. I'm… I'm sorry. And I very much hope that we can be friends."

"Let us be friends, then. My name is Alice."

He took the hand she held out to him, and his heart glowed when she didn't recoil from the chill of his fingers. At last he seemed to relax. "And my name, as you already seem to know, is Erik."

"Tell me then, Erik, what took you to so many places—Nizhni Novgorod and Persia and the cellars of the Opera Garnier?"

This prompted a long, exciting conversation, in which Erik confided his lonely adventures, describing for her the unusual people whom he had met and the strange things that he had seen. He performed for her on his violin, and like magic, the music took her to those exotic lands.

His eyes never left her as his bow stroked the violin's strings. He watched her eyes close and her lips curl into a smile. She inhaled, as though the sounds from his violin emitted a delightful fragrance. When the last note of a Chinese melody faded away, she opened her eyes and grinned.

"That was lovely! If I may visit again, I must ask you to sing for me."

Overwhelmed by her compliments, Erik offered another bow.

He knelt with her on the gingham linen. "It's your turn, Alice. What have your remarkable talents in modern medicine achieved as of late?"

In an instant, the smile left her lips. She fussed with the sleeve of her dress as she explained, "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed in me, Erik. I read everything I could—both in M. Mechnikov's library and in the Bibliothéque. I-I even tried some cellular experiments in Mechnikov's laboratory when he was ill. I found nothing that could help you! Nothing!"

Alarmed at the sudden transformation of her mood, Erik took her hands in his. "I don't doubt that you did what you could."

"I would have given anything to grant you your one wish."

"Ah, but you've at least made Erik smile… Look, your tender words brought tears of joy to my eyes." His eyes were two dark holes in the daylight of that ethereal forest, but she saw two trembling tears make their way along the edge of his mask. "I'm no worse off for your having tried. To the contrary, I've gained a good friend. Thank you… for thinking of poor Erik."

"Then I'm successful after all. I only wanted to make you happy."

He closed his eyes, heady from her words. "No one has ever said that to me."

She lifted his chin until their eyes met. "I love you, Erik."

He could not have been more surprised. For many heartbeats he stared at her, then the smile left his lips. "No." He gently removed her hands from his face.

"Yes—I do! It came so naturally, I don't even know when I started having feelings for you. It was your artistry and genius that attracted my affections."

"Alice! Stop this!"

"Everyone criticizes me because I'm so focused on studying death and disease! And the irony is that you are the feared Opera Ghost! Ha ha! I wouldn't even mind living down in the cellars, in your charming house!"

"Please! I beg you to stop!"

Alice paused. She reached for his hand, her eyes brimming with emotion. "I'm asking you to marry me, Erik. Please don't think me foolish for speaking what's in my heart."

He gently pulled his hand away and stood. "You don't know what you're asking."

"Yes, I do!" she cried, tears springing to her lovely eyes. "And you won't have me, because you still love Christine Daaé!"

He drew back as if she had struck him. His mask could not hide his reaction. She covered her mouth and wished to take back the words that had spilled from her lips. Springing from her seat, she seized her cloak and the lantern and ran from the room.

"Alice!" he called after her.

But she was gone.

**_a/n: I enjoy feedback, so please leave a review and tell me what you enjoy/ hate about my writing, the story, etc.__ You can leave an anonymous review, if you prefer._**


	18. Captain Lefevre is Missing

**a/n: Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed the story! Really, your advices are making this an awesome tale. The next few chapters will come a bit more slowly as I change their order, and I apologize that the newest one is so short, but please continue to leave your comments!**

Chapter 18: Captain Lefevre is Missing

Mechnikov answered the door himself, still wearing his starched lab coat. He recognized the uniform of his visitor—a high-ranking officer of the Sûreté—before he remembered having seen the man's face before.

"Commissioner Mifroid! This is a surprise, Monsieur! ... Er, but Mademoiselle Alice is not in."

Mifroid's friendly grin collapsed into a look of genuine concern. "Not in? But where could she be?"

The biologist shrugged then gestured for the commissioner to enter. "She wasn't in when I awoke this morning. I thought perhaps she'd had a fit of homesickness and had gone to visit you or Madame."

Mifroid took hold of his host's arm. "This is serious, Monsieur! A captain of mine, Lefevre, has been missing since Saturday. My men tell me that he went to investigate that séance at the Garnier. He hasn't returned! Something deadly must have happened at the Opera!"

"Perhaps something happened to your captain _before_ the séance," Mechnikov suggested, "I was there that night, and I never saw any officers."

"His mission was not for an audience, if you take my meaning, Monsieur," Mifroid responded curtly. "Let us take each other into the strictest confidence: My men assure me that Lefevre went in but did not come out. I'm also informed that you and Alice attended the séance as well. If she is missing, you can understand my concern."

"Rest assured, Monsieur, she returned with me that very night. She also joined me the following morning, when we accompanied the Opera managers to pay a call on a Russian composer. She did _not_ disappear in the Garnier!"

"But she may have gone back there this morning! She's gone to the Opera before, from _your_ house, in secret!"

"No, no, Monsieur. I'm an early riser and spend all day at home with my experiments. Your daughter is never out of my sight, except on Sundays when she goes to church and a few times she's gone home to visit or to bring some item."

Upon hearing this information, the commissioner crossed his arms. "Monsieur, she has never come to see us since she moved to your house! My wife, like you, spends her days at home, and hasn't seen her."

"What? Where did Mademoiselle go, then?"

"To the Opera, where else?" cried Mifroid. "This ghost business, and the murders related to it, are an obsession with her."

"And was she seen in church on Sundays, or did she sneak off then as well?"

"I couldn't say, Monsieur. My wife and I attend service at the Madeleine, but Alice prefers the Saint Louis d'Antin."

Mechnikov nodded and passed his fingers through his wiry beard. "Yes, that's where she told me she goes. But please calm yourself, Monsieur. It may be that she went to the d'Antin this morning and not to the Garnier. She wouldn't have been able to get inside the Garnier anyway, at so early an hour."

"Wrong again, Monsieur!" moaned the commissioner. "She has found some secret entrance—I don't know exactly how she gets inside, but she's able to go in anytime, night or day!"

Mechnikov laughed, with mirth so strong his entire body shook and tears appeared in his eyes. "She's certainly a clever girl! Though I had no idea she was more intelligent than the Sûreté! It's clear that she has been investigating the Opera mystery _privately_!"

"Oh! It's all a joke to you, Monsieur, but she's put herself in a lot of danger! It's _murder_ we're investigating, and the criminal is still somewhere in the city—perhaps even hiding in the cellars of the Opera! Alice may have left this morning to play the part of the police again, and fallen into the murderer's trap!" he held his head in his hands as his indignation over Mechnikov's remarks gave way to concern for his daughter.

"Monsieur, it is not yet noon. Let's wait awhile and see if she returns from her errand. If she's not here within the hour, we will search for her. And as it seems that the Sûreté is on much less favorable terms with the Opera managers, I will go with you to look for Mademoiselle Alice at the Garnier, if it comes to that." As he said this, in his most rational and calming tones, the biologist lead Mifroid into his parlor and seated him in a wingback chair.

Mifroid sighed and removed his cap. "I'll wait a half-hour, and no more. And it will give me an opportunity to ask you about the séance."

"The managers were adamant that no police attend."

"That is precisely why we want to know about it."

Mechnikov lowered himself onto the sofa and wiped his clammy palms on his knees. He began to recount for the commissioner the events that had transpired on that stormy night, starting with the list of the attendants and the mysterious combustion of the _Don Juan_ manuscript. Mifroid produced a small notebook from a pocket of his coat and wrote feverishly as Mechnikov continued the narration in his methodical and detailed manner.

There was so much strangeness in the story that even Mifroid considered whether the Opera could indeed be haunted by a real phantom. He listened with interest when Mechnikov stated that Berthelot and M. Curie had removed some of the manuscript's ashes for analysis, and made a note in his little book to pay both men a visit. He also planned to interview the managers, to learn exactly how they had obtained the Ghost's score. And it was also noteworthy to the commissioner that the Persian had attended. How he had learned of the séance was still a mystery to everyone.

Mechnikov had reached his description of the violin music and his explanation of how he had identified the composer, when the front door opened and Alice burst into the parlor. From the expression on her face, Mifroid realized immediately that his daughter was distressed. He leapt to his feet and all but flew to her side.

"Alice!" he cried, "Where have you been? For God's sake, tell me where you've been!"

For a moment, her tense features took on an appearance of absolute despair. _Where had she been?_ It had taken her a few moments to find the pressure point above the corkscrew staircase and climb up into the velvet interior of Box 5. From there, she had made her way to the Haussman exit, losing her way more than once as she navigated through those dark and twisting corridors.

He hadn't followed her.

What had transpired in the Garden Beneath the World had utterly destroyed her spirit—not even the lonely, feared, and disfigured Opera Ghost would have her! She could not return home in such a state of mind. For a time, then, she had escaped to the only place she knew where her heart would find rest.

"I...I was at the Church of Saint Louis d'Antin."

Indeed, much like when she'd escaped to the chapel's quiet hall as the laughing stock of the Sûreté—and like so many other emotional moments which are not recounted in these pages—Alice forgot the time while she spent tearful hours nursing her wounded feelings.

She had not intended to confess her feelings to Erik. In that moment, she merely spoke her heart, and only realized her true feelings after she had spoken. Yet what had she accomplished? The lonely man had desired a friend, and she had all but thrown herself at him!

He had behaved like a gentleman, and she could not be angry with him for his polite refusal. Nevertheless, her broken heart could not understand _why_ he had rejected her advances. It must be, she reasoned, that another had captured his heart before she'd even appeared.

Or had he found something dislikeable in her?

"You don't know how relieved I am to see you safe, my dear," Mifroid sighed, drawing her back from her silent brooding. "Captain Lefevre is missing, and I believe he disappeared in the Garnier!"

"The Garnier?" In an instant, her own concerns evaporated, and she began to worry what Lefevre had found—if he had indeed ventured into the Opera's cellars.

Mifroid, mistaking her alarm as fear for the missing captain, repeated for his daughter the same explanation he had given not an hour earlier to Mechnikov. He embellished it a bit, hoping to impress upon her the danger that Lefevre may have met with in those mysterious cellars. Yet if her behavior betrayed her increasing anxiety, it was only because her father's words confirmed her fear that the captain and the Phantom had crossed paths.

"We may all be in danger—even you, Alice. Those dusty cellars you've been diving into are probably hiding a murderer."

"Papa! I haven't been—"

"Don't lie!" he scolded. "I knew you wouldn't be able to put this case to rest, and so I had Lefevre follow you. You can't sneak past the Sûreté, Alice! If something has happened to Lefevre, it's on your account."

"No, Papa! The séance was in the Grand Foyer, and I stayed in Dr. Mechnikov's sight all evening!"

"It's true, Monsieur," the biologist interrupted. "I'll swear to it."

"It doesn't matter," growled the commissioner, his eyes hard as steel, "I'm taking you back home, where I can keep an eye on you!"

Mechnikov was quite disturbed by the sudden loss of his assistant, and threw out his arms. "Let's not be too drastic, Monsieur. Lefevre might still turn up—perhaps he is still investigating something in the Garnier. And bringing Mademoiselle _closer_ to the Opera can hardly make her safer!"

"Her proximity to the cellars matters less than her access, Monsieur," the commissioner remarked, pointing to the microbiologist. "This arrangement with you has given her too much freedom. Pack your things, Alice!"

She fled to her small room, unable to disguise her frustration. From the bottom of a drawer, she withdrew a set of notes that she had scribbled while researching a cure for Erik's disfigurement. Knowing that the commissioner would search her things for clues of her visits to the Opera cellars, she carefully folded her notes and pressed them into a treatise on acids that she had borrowed from Mechnikov's library. Then she returned the heavy book to the shelf. The iron key she tossed behind the volumes—she certainly had no more need of it! The rest of her things she packed quickly, then left with her father for the Rue Scribe.

She rode back to her family home in heavy, drooping silence. Every hope which she had brought with her to the biologist's doorstep had vanished all in one day. She remembered her first, liberating breaths in Mechnikov's library, and her excitement upon seeing the laboratory. Even her tiny bedroom had been cozy. Yet her independence had been all too short.

She had also believed that she could impress the commissioner by exposing the Opera Ghost, never expecting that her hunt would evolve into a romantic encounter. Neither outcome, however, was to be. A failure on every count, she was not even capable of curing Erik's deformity.

Alice climbed the steps to her father's house with her head hung in sadness.


	19. Erik's Secrets are Discovered

Chapter 19: Erik's Secrets are Discovered

The commissioner tore off his pince-nez and turned to glare at another officer. "I don't know what it means, damn it! I don't know!"

The two men stood in the Grand Foyer of the Opera Garnier, beside one of the foyer's great windows. Lefevre had not been found, and the Sûreté had finally received permission—with some help from Mechnikov—to enter the Garnier in order to search for him. The officer whom Mifroid had just addressed had noticed an anomaly in one of the foyer's windows, and discovered a curious spring and weight contraption hidden within the casing. He then summoned the commissioner, who was on the premises overseeing the search.

But Mifroid could make neither heads nor tails of the instrument.

His daughter, he knew, would have found the answer easily. Alice had a special talent for understanding the unusual, and much of what Mifroid had found inside the Opera was so extraordinary that he now greatly missed her assistance. The mysterious window casing was only the most recent example: Each morning, the night patrol complained of eerie noises and strange lights in the upper windows when those rooms were, in fact, deserted. A team searching for Lefevre in the cellars had returned confounded by the labyrinthine passageways. And just that afternoon, a swarm of officers examining the Grand Foyer had noticed a remarkable amount of fine sand mixed with the ashes of the fireplace.

What did it all mean?

The commissioner stepped away from the tall, narrow window and massaged the bridge of his nose where the pince-nez had been. The late afternoon sunlight set the window glass ablaze in a menacing, orange hue. As Mifroid tried to relax, another officer arrived and cleared his throat.

Mifroid groaned. "Now what?"

"The managers wish to speak to you, M. Commissioner."

Muttering a string of expletives under his breath, Mifroid left the company in the foyer and marched to the managers' office. Moncharmin was absent, but Richard rose from behind his desk and offered the policeman a chair. Mifroid remained standing.

"You agreed to hold us for three weeks only, and your time is up." Richard sighed and returned to his seat. "Our gala début is tonight, when M. Ippolitov-Ivanov conducts some of his works for which we have choreographed a ballet. We cannot allow our prestige to be marred by the Sûreté's _siege_."

Mifroid's jaw clenched at these last words. "But Monsieur, our work is continually hampered by your interruptions! By your demand, we cannot touch anything without your written approval, which first requires a written request! And lately you have taken to interrupting my work to ask me for oral progress reports! Do you forget, Monsieur, that several men were murdered in this building, and that now an officer of the Sûreté is missing as well?" He pointed at Richard. "The very patrons you invite to your inconsequential gala may be in danger, and it is my duty to protect them!"

"Those same patrons will have _me_ hanged if you are all still here when the gala begins."

"The investigation isn't finished! You know what oddities what we've found, Monsieur—and there was more this morning!"

"_Mon Dieu_." Richard's eyes swept the room to assure they weren't overheard. "What else could there be?"

Mifroid explained about the window casing and the sand in the fireplace.

"Perhaps the séance was all a fake after all! The window and the fireplace acted strange that night."

"I'm aware." The commissioner removed the small notebook from his uniform and sat. "I've questioned Mechnikov, who also attended the séance."

"And have you spoken to the others? Berthelot, the Curies?"

He skimmed his notes. "The Curies, I'm afraid, are rather convinced that something of the supernatural occurred. Mme. Giry believes the same. The judge, M. Brousseau, could not make any other observation besides what M. Mechnikov saw, except to confirm that the Persian was under his strict observation since his arrival and could not have orchestrated any of the phenomena that night. But Berthelot provided me with some interesting conclusions after conducting experiments on the ashes he'd collected."

"Yes?"

"An incendiary chemical was used, possibly in the ink of the score."

"Then there is no ghost."

"An intruder is in your Opera, Monsieur. Your staff and patrons are all in danger."

"Damnation! And there's no sign of your missing captain yet? Nor of this imposter?"

Mifroid shook his head.

"Monsieur, Ippolitov-Ivanov plans to return to Russia soon—we cannot postpone the gala!" Richard tasted bile rising in his throat.

"Then we'll have to re-negotiate our agreement, Monsieur. Let us stay. We'll be armed, but out of uniform. Your guests will suspect nothing, and neither will this 'ghost.' Perhaps the composer's performance will draw him out, and then we can make our move!"

* * *

Having accomplished a short reprieve from the Garnier managers, Mifroid returned to the foyer. His work was again interrupted, this time by Mechnikov, who had rushed into the Opera demanding to see the commissioner.

"Monsieur, I believe I have information that can help your investigation," he began after the two stepped into an empty room for the exchange.

Mifroid opened his small notebook again and motioned for Mechnikov to proceed.

"Actually, Monsieur, it concerns Mademoiselle Alice."

At this, Mifroid looked up from his notebook. "What do you mean?"

"It was something that Ippolitov-Ivanov said, that started me thinking. We visited him after the séance, and he described a circus boy with no nose or ears, who directed him to learn music in Tblisi. Before, Mademoiselle had asked me about the causes of malformations involving lack of cartilage. I didn't make the connection until I discovered a page of her notes in one of my treatises, which she had replaced on the wrong shelf. I believe she is searching for a cure for some deformity, although she's not even sure exactly what causes it. These are her notes. The first thing she wrote was a description: no nose, withered ears, a _corpse-like_ appearance."

Mifroid groaned and rolled his eyes. "Monsieur, my daughter has always been interested in the grotesque. I fail to see what connection it has to the search for Lefevre."

"The 'ghost' is the one who recommended Ippolitov-Ivanov in the first place, during that séance. Perhaps this ghost is actually the circus freak from the man's past? I myself would not have thought more of it, except that I also found this key." In his hand was a heavy, iron key with three teeth.

"Well, well," whispered Mifroid. "Alice knows more than I thought. Has she met the criminal? What could it mean?"

"You said before that she lied to me about where she was going, when she really went to the Garnier. Perhaps she uses this key! And it would seem that she is assisting him, to cure his deformity, at least."

"Lefevre said that his men saw her enter the Garnier from a door on the Rue Scribe. Alice once took me by a sewer gate on the Scribe with a lock on it. This may be the key that opens that door!" The commissioner flew out of the room and out of the Opera through the Grand Foyer. In his wake, the officers investigating the foyer looked up in confusion. Only a few minutes later, Mifroid returned, red-faced and sweating from the exercise.

"There's a lake!" he cried. "We need a damned boat!"

* * *

That night, Darius ushered Alice into the Persian's drawing room. She knew that Lefevre hadn't been found, and her father had already left for the opera with his service revolver hidden in his swallowtail suit. She feared for Erik's safety, and came to solicit the Persian's advice. Yet he had even more bad news for her.

"It is a most crucial time, Mademoiselle! I overheard some of the police talking in the Opera earlier this evening. They have Erik's key, and are planning to cross the lake tonight, during intermission! Mademoiselle, if you have any persuasion with him, you must convince him to leave forever. His life is in danger tonight!"

Alice turned pale. "Oh God! They have his key? If only I hadn't been so careless with it when I left Dr. Mechnikov's house! Monsieur, without that key, how are we to find Erik?"

"I will take you to him. Come with me."

He hailed a cab, and they rushed into the same foyer the commissioner had investigated that afternoon. The début was beginning as scheduled, and the foyer was nearly deserted as patrons were already settled in the theater.

The Persian led Alice into a dark back corridor and took her deeper into the Opera. As they passed, listening for the clipping footsteps of the Sûreté, a thunderous applause erupted in the theater as Ippolitov-Ivanov rose from his seat inside the orchestra pit and bowed. Inside the isolated corridor where Alice and the Persian hurried their pace, the noise roared like a waterfall. Then the sound died down and the performance began—a chorus of violins, soon accompanied by other instruments, until the walls shook with the orchestra's full force.

Alice and the Persian had reached the end of the hallway, where he opened a door and led her into the gas-lit room beyond. He closed the door quietly behind them as she studied the room, which she concluded was an abandoned dressing room. A large mirror dominated one wall, and comfortable furniture allowed for lounging. In the corner opposite the mirror was a wardrobe, beside which stood a little vanity table.

Wasting no time, the Persian strode to the wardrobe and pulled it away from the wall. Alice looked behind the furniture, and the Persian pointed to a pinhead, barely noticeable in the wall. He pushed the pin and returned the wardrobe to its place.

"You have seen the consequences of Erik's skill with the Punjab lasso," he cautioned. "Keep your hand like this, between your eyes, as though you held a revolver for a duel. The Sûreté are everywhere, and Erik might not recognize us before it is too late. Be on your guard! Now, follow me without a sound!"

While he spoke, the mirror had suddenly begun to turn like the revolving doors at the Magasin Printemps. Behind the mirror was a very dark hallway, which they entered just as the mirror swung shut behind them, closing off all light.

Alice listened to the sounds in the walls. A few rats scampered at their sudden entrance, and the orchestra continued playing in the theatre, that was all. Their movement had not attracted the notice of the police.

Beside her, the Persian released a sigh of relief. "There is another pin on the floor, very close to the entrance. It will open a trapdoor leading to the first cellar beneath us."

She knelt with him in the blackness, feeling the rough wooden boards beneath their feet. After some time, the Persian uttered a quiet cry of triumph, took her hand, and guided her to a hole in the floor. "I'll go first," he whispered, "to make sure that we are safe. Listen for my signal—and keep your hand at the level of your eyes!" With that, he dropped down into the cellar below.

The orchestra finished its opening piece, and applause again resounded in the darkness. Alice prepared to drop through the trapdoor by sitting on the floor with her feet hanging over the abyss, keeping her hand beside her eyes. Finally she heard a faint whistle from below, and allowed herself to fall.

Strong arms caught her around her waist and helped her to land gently on her feet. The light here was very dim, but stronger than it had been in the stifling area behind the mirror. Alice could see the Persian beside her, and he slowly put his finger to his lips, reminding her to be silent.

They were in a crowded corner of the first cellar, a vast labyrinth of winches and pulleys, rails and stage sets. The area where they found themselves was hidden from the view of the stagehands by virtue of an abandoned set background that had been pushed into the corner. The cellar smelled of sawdust and sweat, and Alice caught a whiff of a rancid smell even more horrible than what she remembered from the catacombs. From her experience at the seminary and investigations with her father at the morgue, she could not be mistaken—it was the smell of rotting flesh.

With a signal to the Persian, she left his side and wandered past a collection of crates that had been thrown into the cellar and forgotten. As the Company began another strange melody in the theater above, Alice followed her nose.

"Mademoiselle!" called the Persian as loud as he dared. "We must find Erik!"

"There is a dead body in this cellar, Monsieur, I'm sure of it."

"If it doesn't belong to Erik himself, then it belongs to his victim!"

Alice continued her search with no reply. At last she pointed to a heap of furniture. "Under there."

The Persian covered his hand with his mouth and tried not to gag. Rats swarmed in and around the pile of trash, and the sour smell was stronger here. He kicked at a legless chair that had been thrown onto the pile, and it rolled down to the floor with a clack. Vermin scattered.

Where the chair had been was a man's shoe, with a leg buried beneath the garbage.

Quickly, the two of them pushed crates, furniture, and pieces of lumber off of the pile, unaware of the great racket they made. They used both hands, heedless of the Persian's prior warnings about the dreaded Punjab lasso. At last they managed to free the entire body, and Alice bent forward to investigate.

The rats had eaten most of the flesh, and one might almost think that it was indeed the Phantom that they had found—such was the face of the corpse. A few insects still crawled inside the eyes and mouth. Around the neck was an unmistakable chord of jute fiber with a distinctive knot.

None of these observations truly horrified Alice. But with her face twisted in terror, she pointed to the moth-eaten clothing of the corpse. His epaulets still bore the bars of a captain of the Sûreté.

They had found Joseph Lefevre.


	20. The Chase

Chapter 20: The Chase

"It was Erik! He murdered Captain Lefevre!" Alice cried, unaware of how loudly she shouted.

"Come Mademoiselle, we must get away!" The Persian guided her away from their gruesome discovery. "Surely someone has heard us. We might be discovered any moment…and I don't mean by the Sûreté! I warned you about Erik's habits!"

She took one last look at what was left of Lefevre. Would his own wife even recognize him?

Above them, the orchestra continued without interruption.

Suddenly, they heard a voice from the other end of the cellar: "This way, Officer! I heard a strange noise behind that stage set."

"Quickly!" the Persian commanded. They ran to a staircase leading down to the second cellar.

"Monsieur, I must speak with my father!"

"And what will he think when he finds that you and I have been exploring the cellars ourselves? We'll be suspects!"

"Then let's go back to the dressing room! I don't want to descend any further!"

"We have no choice! The Sûreté already has us cornered! Down the stairs, before they see us!"

They could hear more voices in the cellar now, all shouting at once as the stage set was removed and the police discovered their fallen comrade. Making her choice, Alice ducked her head and took the stairs, charging into the cellar below. Somehow the Persian passed her on the staircase; she could make out his form, waiting for her at the bottom.

As she approached, however, she realized it was not the Persian. The man at the landing was taller, and wore a top hat, not an astrakhan hat.

His eyes glowed a smoldering golden color in the dark.

"Alice," Erik whispered, "I didn't mean for you to…find the captain. I'm sorry, my dear—he got too close to Erik's house, and he really shouldn't have been trespassing!"

"Erik!" cried the Persian's voice from above her on the staircase. "Don't touch her!"

The cacophony of footsteps on the stairs now drowned out the sounds of the début. Officers were shouting, and Alice recognized her father's voice above them all. Someone directed a gas lantern down the steps.

Alice screamed to attract an officer's attention. In a flash, the Phantom covered her mouth to stifle her screams, and lifted her in his arms with his powerful strength. He sprinted for the other side of the cellar, even as the police came pouring down the stairs like a cascade. The wall opened before him, and he leapt inside with Alice still in his arms. The boards returned to their place, sending the pair into total darkness.

Baffled, the officers in the cellar slowed their pace, shining their lanterns into the shadowed corners of the cellar.

"Did you see him? Did you see his _face_?" Mifroid shouted.

"He wore a mask, M. Commissioner," an officer answered.

"Where the Devil did he go?"

"Through the wall!" responded another.

"_How_ did he go through the wall? Where's the door?"

"As we explained to you before, Monsieur," Richard replied as he came down with another lantern, "he is the Opera Ghost, and he goes through the walls and floors of this building as though they obey his every command!"

"Well, tonight they will obey _my_ command, Monsieur! I have a key that might take me straight to his hiding place! Come upstairs!"

"Charging the gates at this time would be most unwise," said a strange, foreign voice from the shadows.

"Who said that?"

An officer directed his lantern to a corner by the staircase, revealing a man dressed in evening wear and sporting a very odd hat.

"The Persian!" Mifroid cried. "What are you doing here? You're wherever that confounded Ghost is too, aren't you?"

"I'm here to help you, Monsieur. Far beneath our feet, the Opera Ghost has a Communard arsenal powerful enough to destroy half of Paris. If you provoke him with an attack, he might use it, with no regard for his own life."

"_Mon Dieu_!"

"But that is not the worst of it. Monsieur Commissioner, the Ghost has just abducted your daughter."

"Alice? Here, in the Opera? ….What do you suggest?"

The Persian smiled. "A trap."

* * *

Alice felt herself falling. For what seemed like several minutes, the air rushed past her as she and the Phantom dropped from another trapdoor in the floor just behind the cellar wall. He still held her tightly in her arms; she couldn't get free. Even if she could escape, she saw nothing but darkness. She was too frightened to scream.

Erik landed on his feet with the agility of a cat. At last he released her, and she mustered enough courage to slap him in the face.

"You monster!" she growled, her voice echoing in empty space. "How could you murder a captain of the Sûreté!"

"Captain Lefevre trespassed too close to Erik's home! Those who go where they are not wanted get what they deserve!"

He took hold of her wrist, and she drew back. "Let go of me!"

"Oh, would you rather stay here, alone in the dark? Alright then, _adieu_." He released her arm, and she heard his footsteps as he walked away.

The darkness was stifling; the passage smelling of damp earth. She put her hands out in front of her… and was reminded of her encounter in the catacombs. "Wait! I can't see! I'll be trapped down here!"

His answer came from close in front of her: "Then keep quiet and follow me."

As she hurried towards the sound of his voice, she heard a familiar scraping noise as a wall moved aside. She allowed him to take her hand and guide her down a hidden stairwell. All around them, she could hear the sounds of the début performance in the theater.

Her hand was soft in his, and he tried his best to hold her gently. His golden eyes were so accustomed to the dark, that he could see the frightened tears tracing paths down her pale cheek. This was not the rendezvous that he had planned.

"It doesn't sound like they followed us," he said at last. "We can walk a little more slowly, if you feel tired."

"They aren't following you through the cellar wall because they have the key for the Rue Scribe gate. They're going straight for your house!"

"What?" he cried, releasing her arm. He turned to stare at her in the dark. "I should have known that you were conspiring with the Commissioner all along! How stupid of me not to realize that you were only seducing me like a harlot, for the police!"

"I didn't _give_ them the key! But if I had, it would have been no less than you deserve!"

"Yes, you think me a monster—you and all the rest!"

She threw up her hands. "What am I supposed to think? You murdered in cold blood!"

"You didn't mind so much when it was a nameless tramp in the entrance of the catacombs! Why should it matter that it was Captain Lefevre?"

"How could you have no regard for the Sûreté? What if it had been my father, the _commissioner_ of the Sûreté?"

Erik blinked. "Do you really think I would murder your father? Do you even realize how often that opportunity has presented itself, and how often I've refrained?" He turned on his heels and continued down the dark corridor, faster than before.

She ran to catch up, and to avoid being swallowed up by the darkness. "Should I be _thankful_ that you've spared my family? Shall I get on my knees and bless you for your mercy?"

"Rather _I_ should thank _you_ for putting on such airs of affection! You really had me convinced that I was finally loved. For a few days, Erik was actually happy to be alive!... But you never returned," he sighed. "My headstrong mademoiselle, in the end you never returned to see me."

He had again come to a halt. The grind of a key entering a lock echoed in the darkness, and then the lock was turned with a hollow clack. A door opened, and warm, inviting light spilled out into the dark hallway. Alice followed into his living room.

When they were inside, he faced the wall and operated a mechanism that slid the grandfather clock in front of the door they had just used. Then he crossed the room and hung his top hat on the hook by the door to the lake. With slow breaths, he sank into the sofa and crossed his long legs.

Alice remained where she was, standing beside the clock. Above them, a flute began the opening movements of the _Procession of the Sardar_, the whimsical piece that the Opera Ghost had performed at the séance.

"It's impossible for you to understand," he said softly. He stretched his hands in front of him, cupped as though catching drops of rain. "These hands were made for Music and Art, not for killing. But my face rivals that of the Devil himself!" His hands fell to his lap. "Do you know what the Sûreté will do when they capture me? They'll strip off my mask, put me in a cage for the entire city to gawk at. My execution will be a public fanfare—they'll leave me hanging in the gallows so that passersby can examine the face of the freak of nature…. or perhaps my fate is with the guillotine, and then my head will be mounted on a pike on the side of the Boulevard des Capucines, to give the travelers a thrill!"

Alice grimaced at this morbid prediction and put her hand on the clock's wooden casing for support. Would this really be Erik's fate?.. or was it a lie, to regain her sympathy?

He continued, as though guessing her thoughts, "You are perhaps too innocent to understand how cruel the world really is, but Erik knows all too well ….I was in a cage once, and treated like an animal—worse than a slave! My humility was their entertainment. Why do you suppose I wish so much for death? Except for beauty, there's no enjoyment for me in this life.

"Yet still I fear death. It will be my final exhibition—made more pathetic by the absence of anyone to cry over the fate of poor Erik… My passing will be a relief to all. Hasn't Mademoiselle Daaé confirmed that? Lonely even in death—that is my greatest fear."

Overcome with confusion as her pity for Erik warred with her anger over what he had done, Alice slid to the floor as a silent tear slid down her cheek.

Erik hadn't noticed. His eyes remained fixed on his hands, as they had been since he'd begun his soliloquy. "Until you entered my life, Alice, I didn't know what I was. I really am sorry for all I've done. When we ate in my garden, and you said to me words that I never dreamed I'd ever hear, I realized then that killing Captain Lefevre—or anyone else, for that matter—had been a mistake. It's too late for me to change…. but better to go to the gallows in shame than to go with a mistaken conviction of righteousness!"

A mechanical bell interrupted his musings and drowned out the sounds of the orchestra. Alice jumped to her feet. Erik lifted his eyes to the face of the grandfather clock and calmly tracked the motion of its hands.

"That was the doorbell," he explained. "They are coming through the gate. It won't be long, now."


	21. A Trap is Set

Chapter 21: A Trap is Set

Beneath the cover of nighttime shadow, Commissioner Mifroid held open the Rue Scribe gate while Richard and Mechnikov struggled to fit a small, contrived raft inside.

"Is this the door your daughter used during her secret visits to the Garnier, Monsieur?" asked the biologist, his voice muffled behind the raft's rough, wooden planks.

Mifroid peered through the bars of the gate and sighed. "Yes."

"I remember a conversation that I had with her—several months ago—she seemed to believe that the sewer gates of Paris are all locked. I couldn't understand where she had gotten such a notion! Now it is all clear."

The commissioner's grip on the cold gate tightened until his knuckles were white. "I was the one who told her that, Monsieur. She said she had found a trap door in one of the cellars, and that it led to a den used by the murderer. I didn't believe her. She even tried to show me the gate through which she had passed after crossing an underground lake—it was all too incredible for me to believe. What a fool I was!"

"Monsieur, don't be too hard on yourself," counseled Richard as he strained to lift one end of the raft. "We were all fooled."

"If only I had made the connection when Lefevre informed me that she was secretly entering the Opera through that same gate!"

Richard dropped his end of the raft and stared at Mifroid. "Do you mean that she came _back_? If she had already found the Ghost's lair, what reason did she have to return?"

"It's my fault, I fear. Since I wasn't listening to her, she would continue her own investigation until she caught the criminal, and prove her worth. I should have never doubted her."

"It is more complicated than that, I'm afraid," said the Persian, startling the group with his sudden appearance. He passed a shaded lantern and a fluff of cotton to Richard. "Take this cotton and fill your ears before crossing the lake. Your very lives may depend on it!" He turned to Mifroid. "You and I must go. Messieurs Mechnikov and Richard will take the raft alone."

Mifroid offered a shrug before following the Persian back to the Grand Foyer.

Mechnikov and Richard struggled to carry the raft down the narrow stairs. Their grunts and sighs echoed in the narrow tunnel like hidden demons.

"There's a musty smell, like damp rags," Mechnikov commented, his Russian voice hollow with echoes. "The temperature has dropped, too."

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Richard released the raft and opened the shade of the lantern. "_Mon Dieu…_"

The lantern's rays of light glittered across the lake, which swirled and rippled with silky green and purple hues. The performance in the theater thundered in the subterranean cavern as though the two men had front row seats. The space was so vast and dark, that neither man could see the cavern's ceiling or its sides.

Fascinated, they dragged the raft onto the lake. Richard passed Mechnikov a small handful of the cotton, then began pressing it into his ears. Mechnikov hesitated, his hand with the cotton suspended midway to his ear.

"Just a minute, Monsieur," he said strangely. "I smell paraffin gas."

Richard froze.

Mechnikov examined his surroundings for the source of the odor. "Direct the light this way, if you please, Monsieur."

"Er… Doctor, our instructions were to take the raft to the other side and find a house by the lake; the Persian said nothing about exploring this abysmal cave."

"Yes, but the Persian didn't have us plug our noses as well as our ears. Right now I don't hear anything peculiar, but I certainly smell something. Perhaps it is the lake itself?... but what is this?"

Mechnikov climbed onto the raft and began guiding it along one of the cavern's sides. Richard stepped onto the raft before it could pull away, nearly dropping the lantern and their oar in his haste. He, too, caught a whiff of the sharp, burning smell. Along the edge of the lake, Mechnikov paused to scrutinize the exposed bedrock of the wall. His fingers explored the rock's recesses, reaching higher until his hands were above his head.

"Yes, there is a canal up here, running the length of this wall. What's this?" he pulled his hand down and licked the tip of his finger.

He said something after that, but Richard had just stuffed the cotton in his ears.

"What?" cried Richard, leaning closer.

"Paraffin!" Mechnikov shouted, holding up the hand with fingertips soaked in the reeking oil. His voice thundered across the empty cavern.

Richard was so startled, he nearly fell overboard. As it was, the lantern fell from his hands as he tried to keep his balance. It dropped into the water with a fantastic splash, plunging them into immediate and total darkness.

* * *

Several cellars above the luckless pair, Commissioner Mifroid followed the Persian down a stairwell while the two men kept their right hands at the level of their eyes.

"Why the cotton in their ears?" Mifroid dodged around a gondola left lying at the base of the stairs by a stage lackey.

The Persian stopped to wait for Mifroid. His answer was only a low and terrible whisper that made the hairs of the commissioner's neck stand on end: "Erik keeps a siren in the lake."

"That name again!" Mifroid replied in his own, strained whisper. "You'd better tell me who Erik is."

The Persian resumed his march through the cellar. "In my home country, I was once an officer of the law, like you. I was assigned the task of executing a prisoner of the Sultan. That prisoner was our Erik. He came from… another land."

"He escaped your execution, then?"

"No… I released him.."

From the corners of his eyes, Mifroid saw long, frightening shadows move against the walls as they walked. "Why?"

The Persian directed his lantern down another dark staircase. "If you see him, you will understand." He descended the stairs, with Mifroid doing his best to keep up.

Beneath them, the shadows thrown by the Persian's lantern against the balusters grew like skeletons reaching for them from the floor. "_Mon Dieu_!" Mifroid said under his breath. "Alice must be terrified!"

"On the contrary, Monsieur, she is infatuated. Erik is extremely talented—he wrote _Don Juan Triumphant_."

Mifroid fisted his hands. "He seduced her! She won't cooperate with his capture, then."

The Persian stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to the commissioner. "Take heart, Monsieur. This time, she did not go to him freely. When she found Lefevre's corpse, she gave up the ghost—so to speak."

Mifroid groaned, and removed his hat to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief. The cellars were much warmer than he had expected.

"The trap we have set will catch him regardless: while the doctor and the manager distract him on the lake, we will creep over him from above. We're now in the third cellar, where the body of Buquet was found. Alice discovered a secret door here, which disappeared when she tried to show it to you. I thought at first that Erik had sealed the door and removed the mechanisms that open it. But the more I thought about it, I realized that his economy would find a way to be rid of his hunters while keeping his back door. I returned to investigate, and learned that an ingenious contraption of mirrors made the pin invisible."

The Persian set his lantern on a pile of wood and gathered some soft dirt in his hands.

Mifroid watched in confusion, still holding his hat. "Mirrors? There's nothing there."

"Ah! But watch!" the Persian exclaimed, and scattered his fistful of dust, creating a smoky fog.

In the light of his lantern, a nail head poked clearly out of the floor.

"There are tiny mirrors within the pile of wood," the Persian explained. "The mirrors bend the light and reflect an image of an empty part of the floor over the pin."

"Like hiding the house key under the mat."

"Precisely."

"He's a clever devil!" exclaimed the commissioner as he replaced his hat.

"Monsieur, he is very cunning indeed! This back door, through which we shall pass, leads to a torture chamber. We must be extremely careful—if Erik learns where we are, he might trigger the tortures to begin! Everything depends on our friends on the lake, who must distract the monster while we take this dangerous route."

* * *

Erik had risen from his seat after the doorbell rang, and he disappeared silently into the room with the terrible coffin in its center. He returned after a time with his arms full of various papers that smelled of ink.

Alice sat at the table with her head in her hands. She looked up as he closed his bedroom door, and he saw the tracts that her heavy tears had made along her cheeks.

"You really care for me," he whispered.

She wiped her eyes. "There's more to you than your lasso. Why won't you run away, and start a new life somewhere else?"

He shook his head. "My curse will find me wherever I go. The Sûreté intends to capture me, and so I must trust you with some of my possessions. Consider this my Last Will and Testament."

He laid a loose ream of papers in front of her on the table.

"These are unfinished concertos. Let no one see them. Keep them safe for me so that—God willing—if I am released, I may continue to work on them… but if I am executed—burn them."

She nodded, stunned by his seriousness.

Next, he unrolled several sheets of drafting paper that covered the entire surface of his table and hung off the sides. "These are the architectural plans for the basilica that they're building north of here. Paul Abadie's design _attempts_ to recreate the domes of the mosques in the Muslim world, but Abadie has never visited a mosque—as his drafting plans reveal. The domes of the Sacré-Coeur are doomed to collapse, unless they make the changes that I've noted here in red ink."

He pointed with one slender finger to some marks drawn in the same, distinctive vermilion ink that she had seen in the manuscript of _Don Juan_ and in his furtive letter to her the night of the séance.

"The Sacré-Coeur," he said, eying Alice soberly, "is intended to atone for the massacres committed by the communards. Place my revisions in the hands of the supervising architect, and perhaps the basilica will be _my_ redemption, as well."

"Erik," cried Alice, "you don't have to do this! Run away! Hide! Don't let my father catch you!"

He looked in her eyes and saw she really meant it—that she had already forgiven him. Neither realized that the gala performance, stories above them, had ceased for intermission. Now the only sound was the dismal ticking of Erik's grandfather clock.

His eyes burned with more agony than she had ever seen in them before. "Because of you, Alice, I want to live—when I have only ever wanted to die. But that life is not for me; I cannot forget what I have done."

She took his hand and brought it to her lips before he could protest. He closed his eyes, trembling as his cadaver's fingers warmed beneath her kiss. As his breaths grew deeper, he pulled her hand back towards his breast and held her hand between his own. His eyes locked with hers, and he said nothing more.

"Release my daughter, you disgusting fiend!" shouted a familiar voice behind them.

The couple turned in their embrace to find the commissioner and the Persian, both with their revolvers aimed at the unfortunate pair.


	22. A Plea for Mercy

**a/n: You have all been waiting long enough! My appologies; I was very ill for a long, long time**.

Chapter 22: A Plea for Mercy

"Take your hands off of her, you vile creature!" Mifroid tore Alice from her companion's arms. She struggled free of her father's grasp, but the Persian held her fast.

"You bloodthirsty beast! Lefevre was one of my best men!" Mifroid reached for the mask.

"Monsieur," protested the Persian, "I would not advise—"

Alice screamed as her father tore off the mask.

The man whom she had embraced made no move to resist, but red hatred burned in the dark sockets of his frightening death's head. A walking corpse, his ugliness surpassed anything the commissioner could have imagined. Mifroid, whose mind still spun from his exploration of Erik's intricate torture chamber, stared slackjawed at the demon he had uncovered.

The Persian moaned and closed his eyes. His heavy heartbeat matched the hollow tick of the grandfather clock.

Erik's golden eyes turned to Alice. When she met his gaze, her face contorted in spasms as she fought to keep the tears from her eyes.

A commotion arose as Richard and Mechnikov burst into the room. Behind them, the cavern appeared to be aflame.

"A channel of paraffin gas!" Mechnikov exclaimed. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. "We lost the lantern in the lake, but fortunately Richard had some matches. The conduit surrounds the entire lake—it's an ingenious construction for illuminating the cavern!"

"That feature is _not_ included in the Garnier's architectural plans." Richard frowned as he surveyed Erik's drawing room. "None of this is in the plans."

"Erik built it all," sighed the Persian. "He built the Garnier."

Mechnikov turned to Mifroid's prisoner, and his eyes grew wide. "Is this our Opera Ghost?"

"We were just about to arrest him," the commissioner replied.

"No!" Alice renewed her struggles against the Persian. "You don't understand! He only harms those who disturb his peace! He's not a beast—He saved me in the catacombs!"

Mifroid scowled at his daughter.

"I fainted while looking for clues in the catacombs, and Erik carried me to safety. Later, I returned to his house for evidence of its existence, but he was there… He didn't hurt me, Papa! His face frightens people, and he only wants to live in peace."

The Persian released another sigh. He had led the commissioner into the monster's domain expecting to find Alice a prisoner, begging for her life—instead, she was fighting for _his_ life. All this, the Persian was convinced, meant that something in his friend had changed.

"And what now, Erik?" he asked. "We can't allow this to continue."

"Now, Daroga, I will face the consequences of my crimes, even if it means my death."

"No!" Alice pulled free of the Persian's weakened grasp and threw herself between Erik and her father. "Papa, _I love him_!"

This statement so shocked the commissioner that he nearly dropped his service revolver. Richard staggered backwards and ran into the wall, and the Persian began pulling on his beard with the hand that held his revolver. Mechnikov smirked and threw up his hands in a gesture demonstrating women's frivolity. Only Erik, who still stood in the middle of his crowd of captors, was unphased by Alice's revelation.

"Alice!" Mifroid hissed, his beady eyes narrowing to deadly slits. "This man murdered a captain of the Sûreté! Have you gone totally mad? Has he hypnotized you?"

To everyone's surprise, Erik himself replied. "On the contrary, Monsieur Commissioner," he said in a calm, splendid tenor, "I only wanted quiet isolation, as she has already explained. Moreover, I could no more convince a young woman to adore a man with a face like mine, than I could convince my own mother. Impossible as it is for me to believe, and despite my objection,_ she_ has chosen _me_."

Mifroid did not know how to respond.

"Let him go, Papa. Please."

"You know I can't do that. This isn't Persia—this is a country of laws, not of men. I must make the arrest."

"Don't torture him like this. Give him back his mask! Please!"

"Best to replace the mask. We don't want to make a scene when we take him outside," reasoned Richard, who would not confess that the man's face terrified him even more than had the Opera Ghost's illusions.

The commissioner shrugged and handed the mask to his daughter. She said nothing more, but turned to Erik and touched her palm to his deformed cheek in a tender gesture before reaching behind his head and tying the cords of the mask.

Erik took her hands in his. "Alice, let them take me."

"But they'll execute you!"

"Let them."

She looked in his masked face and could no longer hold back her tears. He released her, and she stood aside while her father made the arrest.

Then Mechnikov led the way out to the raft and boat while Richard held open the door for the commissioner and his prisoner. The reluctant Persian brought up the rear.

Alice looked around Erik's vacant apartment in tears, her hands balled into fists. His harp and violin were abandoned in the corner; his hat still hung by the door. Her eyes found the architectural plans with their corrections in Erik's hand. _The domes of the Sacré-Coeur are doomed to collapse, because Abadie has never seen a mosque…_ As her father had just said, this wasn't Persia.

Seized by a sudden idea, she grabbed the drafting papers and hurried out to the lake.

"Extradition!" she shouted at the men boarding the raft and boat.

They all stopped and turned.

Alice ran to the Persian. "France and Persia have a treaty of extradition, do they not? When the sultan hears of Erik's arrest, he'll demand that Erik be turned over to Persia."

Erik's golden eyes grew wide. "No!" He took hold of Mifroid's lapels. "Monsieur, I beg you, kill me where I stand—but don't send me to Persia! The suffering I've endured in life will be nothing compared to what the sultan will devise!"

Mifroid turned to the Persian. "Is this the truth, Monsieur? Tell me honestly. I am a man of justice; I cannot allow a prisoner to be tortured."

"I'm afraid it is all true, Monsieur Commissioner. Our ways are different than yours. There will not even be a trial—the sultan has no time for such empty gestures."

Mechnikov placed a hand on Mifroid's shoulder. "Monsieur, perhaps we can keep this arrest just between ourselves? Is there not some way to punish him without a formal trial? By his appearance, he is a man who has suffered much already."

"But executions are public affairs."

Alice shoved the drafting papers under her father's nose. "Let Erik serve his penance at the construction site of the Sacré-Coeur. He found faults in the architectural plans, and the building will collapse without these changes."

The Persian smiled. "If the arrest is not made public, then I am relieved from reporting to the sultan."

Mifroid frowned at the plans. "He'll stay at the prefecture until a closed inquest before the magistrate, where I can recommend lesser charges."

Alice gasped with joy and threw her arms around her father.

"That's all I can do. You can never return to the Opera, you know. You might even have to leave France."

"Yes, Monsieur Commissioner," Erik replied.

"And your service at the Sacré-Coeur, if allowed, will be watched by the Sûreté."

"I understand completely."

"I'll call the carriage from the stables," said Richard.

The men led their prisoner out to the lake and into the boat. With Richard guiding the craft and Mifroid guarding the captive, the party left for the precinct.

Alice watched from the dock as the small boat, surrounded by a circle of flame, made its way to the opposite shore. She then turned to prepare the apartment for the absence of its owner and to secure the trap doors.

In the bath, she found Erik's dressing gown in the mustard-colored, art nouveau print. She took it from its hook behind the door and inhaled its earthy fragrance.


	23. Epilogue: Redemption

Epilogue: Redemption

The skeleton of the Sacré-Coeur crowned the hillside like a Catholic Taj Mahal, its bone-white domes shining in the menacing sky where clouds gathered with a chill wind. Inside the site's provisional chapel, the congregants warmed their chapped fingers under the candelabra, and spoke of a possible blizzard.

Although she tried, Alice could not uplift her mood, even as the priest delivered a sparkling sermon on hope overcoming fear, forgiveness overcoming hatred. The chapel walls glowed with the golden light of the candelabra, but there was no light in her heart. She had not forgotten that the extraordinary man who had lived beneath the Opera did not return her tender sentiments.

With the service finished, the heavy double doors were opened, and the worshippers stepped out into the freezing cold. Snow had indeed begun to fall, in heavy flakes that swirled in the wind and collected on piles of masonry in deep drifts. Eager to be in their warm homes, the congregants were quick to disband. The streets surrounding the hillside were already deserted. Alice paused on the stone steps of the church to take in the serenity of the falling snow.

Then she saw _him_.

She wasn't certain that it was indeed Erik whom she had just seen. But, for a moment, as the departing crowd thinned, she had caught a glimpse of a somber-looking man, wearing a heavy wool cloak and broad-brimmed hat, and waiting patiently in the shadows behind some masonry equipment. He faced the scattered bricks at his feet, and the wide brim of his hat hid his face from view.

A singular movement had caught her eye: As another screaming wind ripped along the tor, the man kept his chin glued to his chest and withdrew his hand from the pocket of his cloak to hold the hat in place.

She nearly started. Unmistakably, it was Erik's hand.

He was not wearing gloves, despite the bitter cold, and she saw distinctly the long, bony fingers that seemed almost yellow against the pure falling snow. He had deliberately removed his gloves so that she alone might recognize him.

With her heart in her throat, she crossed the deserted avenue. He lifted his chin as she neared, and she saw the edge of a white opera mask under his hat.

Any doubts as to the man's identity were dispelled as he began to speak:

"I feared that I would serve my penance all alone," he sighed, in a rich, melancholy voice that Alice had feared she would never hear again. He pushed at the brim of his hat, so that their eyes could meet. In the blinding white snowfall, however, she only saw two cavernous, dark holes. His golden eyes could only be seen in the darkness, or so she was learning.

"How did you know I was coming?"

"I know you well enough." He lifted her chin with one bone-cold finger. "Had you wanted, you could have paid me a visit months ago. I've been waiting a long time."

She looked down at her shoes and sighed. "I'm nothing like your singer Christine Daaé. My time is spent with chemicals and retorts, not perfume and pretty costumes... I suppose that explains why no man has ever taken an interest in me. I can't blame you for being like the rest."

She turned to storm off down the street towards home, but he grabbed her arm.

"I find nothing offensive about you, nothing at all! Did I not invite you to my home, take you across Lake Avern myself, and share with you what I have not shared with another soul on this Earth? Would I have done all that, if I detested you?"

She stared mutely at him.

"Try to understand, Alice," he continued, releasing her arm with a sigh. "It's not you whom I find offensive, but myself… I, too, have loved and lost." He gazed past her, into the white shroud of his memory. "It can never, ever be—because of my terrifying ugliness! You're shaking your head, you angel!—but you know it to be true! If I had a normal face—not even a handsome face, mind you, but one at least tolerable to look at—would I not have won her affection?... I realize now that it cannot be. If I am ever to find happiness in my wretched life, I need to accept what cannot be. And then, in the short time I've known you, my regard for your nature has eclipsed all else within my heart."

"Erik," she cried, still shaking her head, "why are you telling me this?"

"Why?" he repeated, as though her question had drawn him back from some deep reverie. "Do you love me, Alice, truly?"

"I've already told you that I do."

Another freezing gust of wind tugged at their clothes and all but knocked them over. The falling snow surrounded them in a white veil, as though they were the only two people in the world. A blanket of snow had transformed the grounds into a white fairyland, and there was no sound.

"I'm considerably older than you, Alice," he whispered when the wind had subsided. "Five years younger than the Commissioner."

She nodded, not bothering to ask how he knew her father's age. It seemed almost natural that he know everything.

"By now, you're aware," he sighed, "that I will always be cursed with this hideous face. I cannot live as you do, _above_. I am condemned to the darkness below."

"But I don't love you out of pity—if you never changed at all, I would be happy... I only wish someone felt the same for me."

"How could I not love you as you are? I've never met a woman whose physical attraction so perfectly demonstrated the beauty of her heart!" His voice sounded almost angry. "And if it weren't for your interest in the grotesque, then how could our paths have crossed?... You were right when you hinted that we are a perfect match—I knew it, I think, when we met in the catacombs. I had never seen such bravery in a woman... Come with me," he said suddenly, and led her behind a small grove of old oak trees, where the pair would be invisible to the Sûreté patrolling the grounds. "You suppose that some commitment to Mlle. Daaé prevents me from accepting your proposal, but in truth my reluctance is due to my affection for you. How can I condemn you, dear Alice, to the same Hell in which I myself suffer? I would rather continue in this torture alone—though I might die from it!... But if it's true that you're as lonely as I, and that my company gives you pleasure ... But think of what you're asking, Alice! Would you really promise yourself—body, heart, and mind—to a monster? And once you swear yourself to me—once I give in to trust, you know—you cannot go back on your promise to live with this hideous beast _forever_!"

Her only answer was a charming smile more brilliant than the snowfall surrounding them.

Mesmerized by her beauty, he stared into her eyes, but he was too grave to mirror her cheerful grin. Taking both of her hands in his, he dropped to one knee in the freezing snow. "Marry me, Alice Mifroid, I beg you —and release my soul from its lonely torment... I even have a ring," he added, reaching into his waistcoat pocket, "but that won't surprise you, clever girl, as you've already seen it."

Alice was speechless. Her little mouth had dropped open in surprise.

"No doubt you suspect that my intentions are dishonorable," he continued, still kneeling in the drift of snow. "Listening to myself, I hardly know what I'm saying—I'm proposing a crucifixion! I'm asking you to forfeit your every Earthly pleasure, only so that my torment might be more bearable... But I swear by Heaven that you alone, Alice, can save me. Did you think I didn't recognize how wholly your character compliments my own? —But the ground is so cold! Say something, please."

"Yes!" she cried, mustering all her strength to untie her tongue. "It's no sacrifice, for me. I'll join you happily."

For a moment he could do nothing but hold her trembling hands and close his eyes in ecstasy, until the sting in his leg from the frozen ground brought him back to himself. Then he was again on his feet, and his fiancée wore his ring. Bashfully, the couple rejoined the path leading back to the city. It brought an indescribable joy to Erik's soul, to see how her eyes lit up _when she looked at him!_

But on this Earth all good things come to an end, and too soon the pair found themselves at the exit of the grounds.

"I must leave you, I'm afraid," he said, untangling her arm from his. "I fear if I venture any farther, the Commissioner's men will see you with me, and that can only lead to awkward questions."

"When shall I see you again?"

"It will not be soon. I doubt that I will have another blizzard for cover."

"Then may I ask what name I shall take when we are married?"

He drew back in surprise, and then his lips lifted in such a wide smile that she caught a glimpse of his white teeth. He removed the broad-brimmed hat, brought his lips by her ear, and whispered the name so softly that Alice almost didn't hear.

It was an honorable name.

Before he withdrew, he kissed her on the temple, and Alice blushed with such violence that she wondered why she didn't melt the snow beneath her feet. He replaced the hat with lowered eyes and offered a chivalrous bow.

"Go now, Alice," he commanded, "before they suspect something, and come looking for me."

Reluctantly she tore herself away. Three times she looked back and saw his dark figure in the shadows of a stunted pine, his eyes never leaving her. In those eyes she saw a new light, glowing even in the white snowfall, and she knew that at last he had found the will to live.

_**The End**_


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